


falling apart but it's perfectly perfect

by summersociety



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: F/F, Mutual Pining, POV Alternating, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, it'll get sexy, mild violence but nothing gore fest worthy, this fandom and pairing seems to be dying and i'm going to resuscitate it, this is getting longer than initially expected, with my bare god damn hands
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2019-09-05 20:04:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16817518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summersociety/pseuds/summersociety
Summary: This was not supposed to happen. This was definitely not supposed to happen. It was completely unfair to the both of them - after everything they've both been through - that they ended up being soulmates.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> AN: it's that dumb fuckin soulmate AU. I can't believe no one has done this before. 
> 
> Apparently this is the only pairing I'll ever write about. Thanks @ 76 (which is actually a fun game, fight me) for bringing me back to my heavily modded, hardcore FO4 survival game and making me fall in love with this pairing all over again.
> 
> (i'm ignoring other fics in progress lmao. and my final papers. i decided to go back to school! maybe me write goodly someday!)

It all happened so quickly: so much all at once that there was barely time to process it.

Getting ready in the morning. They were going to go to the park – and then sirens. Running to the vault, and -

The lucky few of Sanctuary Hills were donning their clothing, taking the vault suits that the members of Vault 111 gave them. A plastic-y yet starchy material that almost felt like wearing sandpaper, if Brigid was honest.

“Come on, honey.” Nate said, who had handed Shaun to her while he was zipping up his bodysuit. “It’s what’s in style down here.” His voice was shaky, naturally; Nate tried to keep a brave face in times like these – especially after he came home from the war, in which his face was always a little bit like that. “We’ll get used to it.”

“Whatever these are made of,” Brigid looked at the suit she was wearing, grimacing, “It’s so sickeningly tacky and...blue. It’s all I can think of. I think I’m going to be sick of the word “blue” forever.”

“Hon.” Nate looked at her up and down. “You’re still just as beautiful as the day I met you.”

He zipped up the rest of his vault suit, the last of his zipper completely covering over the silvery, metallic patch of skin that was his soul mark.

Brigid winced internally. She couldn’t see his soul mark – that is, the spot where the two of them first touched – because of that damn body suit. She looked down at the palms of her hands, which shimmered with the same silver that his chest did; at least she had that.

They were one of the lucky ones. When you first touch your soulmate, it leaves a mark on your skin forever, and Brigid remembered it like it was yesterday. The night she first met Nate was at a barbecue in the summer held by their mutual friend. They were strangers and one agitated drunken word led to another before Brigid dropped her solo cup and pushed him into the pool; when they gasped for air, the area of his chest that she pushed him _on_ and the palms of her hands that she pushed him _with_ were both gleaming and silvery, and the situation got ten times more _awkward_. 

They ran into each other a few more times, both avoiding eye contact with each other for a bit until Nate finally mustered up the courage to ask her out.

It would have been a happy ending if they weren’t _here_ , and the world that they were taking on by storm together was completely, utterly destroyed.

“It won’t be that bad, will it?” It was less of a question and more of an anxious thought aloud. She looked down at baby Shaun in her arms, who, somehow, was blissfully asleep.

“Not at all.” Nate wrapped his arm around his wife, looking down at their child. “What did they call it? _A better future underground_?”

“Yeah. I wasn't exactly paying attention to the guy who came to our door, but yeah.”

“That's because you were too busy giving him your world famous snark.” Nate kissed the side of Brigid’s head, ruffling her blonde hair. “Regardless, we’ll figure it out.”

“Together.”

“Together. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

-

“ _Critical failure in Cryogenic Array. All Vault residents must vacate immediately.”_

The hatch swung open, and Brigid fell to her knees with a gasp.

Rime clung to her vault suit. Some kind of security system was shooting off an alarm that pierced through her skull. It felt as if someone was rudely shaking her shoulders as she slept, punching her in the gut while they were at it as the _worst headache_ she’d ever had pierced through her body and -

She didn’t have strength in her legs to stand, her entire body was trembling – and horribly, horribly cold.

“Were we…?” The echo of her words reverberated around the hollow Vault.

_Frozen? Kept in...storage? Where is everybody?_

Where was –

“Nate." 

Slowly, on hands and knees, she crawled over to the pod where Nate was – _is,_ she begged internally. Brigid pleaded to every higher power and invented god she could think of as she made her way over to her husband.

It was a dream. It _had_ to be a dream. A horrible dream about people in strange suits opening Nate’s pod. Prying Shaun from his arms. A gun. The bald man and a scar, face to face with the window of her own pod. His low, gravely voice: " _At least we have the backup."_

She sat at the base of the control panel that opened the pod, exhausted at the effort. With trembling fingers, she reached for the hatch, pulled the lever –

and screamed.

-

It was all happening so slowly: so much so that she hardly thought it’d ever come to anything. 

Waking up to no one by her side in the morning. The lingering, pitiful looks. And the condolences –

The lucky few in the world had already found their soulmate already. Not that Piper minded – at this point, she was pretty sure her soulmate was her printing press. It wasn’t anything that she was _immediately_ concerned about; even if it never happened, she was sure she’d be fine with it.

It seemed a little bit overrated, if Piper was honest. Everyone going around and about, seeking that _special someone_ who’d, upon first touch, turn that precious skin silver and they’d live _happily ever after._

Which led to so much _tackiness_ that Piper felt like she was going to _puke_. Way too many handshakes than Piper was comfortable with – which people always complained about. She’d heard it a million times – “ _you’re too cold.”_ It was something of a medical anomaly, and Dr. Sun, after much testing, was baffled by the fact that, physically, Piper had an actual, physically lower body temperature that no one could ever figure out. It made the bulky jacket convenient at any time of year.

Too much physical contact. Not just with her, but with _everyone_. The kind of people extremely desperate for a soulmate would make a point of it to wear shorter sleeves, even in the winter. Accidentally brushing against people in the marketplace, offering high fives. Of course, there were a selective few success stories, but more often than not people went home alone.

Which lead to an _overwhelming surplus_ of letters to the Publick Occurrences advice column. She pitied them a little, just because they seemed like lonesome folk looking for their other half. Still, the Publick was not a lonely hearts club and if she got one more letter of _Dear Publick, I’m_ _X_ _years old and I haven’t found my soulmate yet_ she was going to _scream_. 

People didn’t realize that it wasn’t the end of the world. Piper was _perfectly_ fine without a soulmate, and that was something she could 110% attest to. She had the paper, she had Nat, she had adventures on rooftops and infiltrating organizations and getting away in the nick of time and running so hard that she couldn’t _breathe,_ laughing the entire way home.

Piper locked the door to Publick Occurrences behind her, ready to hang up her hat for a day. She was trailing the case of Diamond City’s own private investigator and just why he’d gone missing, but she was at a dead end and decided to call it a night for now.

_I could always talk to Ellie about this. If anyone knows where Nick was last, it was definitely her. Maybe in the morning, I –_

Piper, all of a sudden, fell to her knees.

She gasped, a rattling breath that surprised her. Her heart raced as, with trembling hands – how did she become so weak all of a sudden? That also sent a spike of anxiety through Piper – she reached into the depths of her jacket for a stimpack. She closed her eyes, winced as she stuck it into her thigh, and –

Nothing.

She didn’t know what was happening. Anxiety through her, but she also felt...sad? Angry? Alone? 

And, for the first time in her life, uncomfortably warm.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: A continued thanks @ my final exams for giving me the motivation to do literally anything else other than study for my final exams. I'm trying not to make this seventeen-hundred chapters if I can help it, but my Microsoft Word draft document is getting pretty fuckin lengthy.

Brigid made it to Diamond City in the middle of the afternoon a few days after getting out of the Vault - and not a second sooner, because it seemed like it was going to rain.

“It’s pretty fucking warm out.” Brigid unzipped her vault suit, only enough so that it wasn’t as restrictive around her neck. Looking up at the gray sky, she added, “Hope it breaks.”

“I’ve never been warm in my life.”

“That’s a weird thing to brag about, but alright.”

“Ugh – I mean it, Blue.” Piper rolled her eyes at Brigid’s smarmy look. “Medically. Dr. Sun could never figure it out. Always said it was the oddest anomaly he’d ever encountered.”

 _Blue._ It was the nickname that Piper had assigned Brigid, based off the bluest-blue vault suit that she was wearing when they met just a few hours ago. There were worse nicknames to be had, sure. Blue was actually cute as far as nicknames went, so Brigid wasn't going to be correcting Piper any time soon. In a weird way, it almost felt like starting over with a new identity - which she was doing anyway, considering she'd just woken up two hundred years into the future, but it was a new identity to one singular person alone. That felt, in a way, comforting. 

She was pretty sick of the fucking suit, though. It was just about as breathable as plastic wrap wrung too tightly around skin.

“Huh.” Brigid shrugged. “Guess I can relate. I was cryogenically frozen until just recently. Not that I was...conscious for any of it.”

Brigid internally winced at the memory. There were only fleeting moments of Vault 111 that she remembered. Being lowered into the vault – which, she had to remind her, was two hundred years ago despite the fact that it only felt like days. Getting into the pod. And Nate –

Piper must have noticed Brigid’s sudden turn in mood, because she shot her a half-cocked smile. “Well, don’t worry about the cold too long. A wonderful side effect of you people destroying the world was a pretty consistent nuclear summer.”

Brigid raised her eyebrow. “ _You_ people?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Suuuure I do.” Brigid drew out as Piper rolled her eyes.

For the first time that she’d walked out of that damn vault, Brigid felt herself genuinely smile. She’d met Preston, sure – which, despite how grateful she was to see another human being, she was too clouded by loss to really stop and acquaint herself with any of the refugees from Quincy. Piper was, in truth, the first person she’d _talked_ to since waking into a post war Boston and she prayed that wouldn’t make her clingy toward the reporter, but it was nice to talk to someone who seemed nice enough. And funny. And fiery, and interesting –

 _and pretty_.

Not that she was looking for anything – she didn’t know if she’d even be able to get over Nate. He was her soulmate, in every sense of the meaning, and Brigid had heard of a few people who had found two or more, but the second thing she did when she got out of the vault was drag his body out of there and bury it behind their old house, sleeping a night beside his grave. All she had was her wedding ring – and his – and their son who was out there. Somewhere.

Still, it was nice to have at least _one_ person she could talk to. They were on a first name basis, but barely that. It was entirely apparently that Piper was only interested in the greater good; another thing that Brigid found admirable, as she shared the same sentiment. Maybe Brigid could spread a little good, too, if she came across the chance. Maybe they could do it together sometime, and –

It went as such: priority number one, kill the man who killed Nate in such a gruesome way that it would make a puritan of the devil. Priority number two: find her son. But, as she spent the few hours with Piper as she walked her through the city, a newfound priority number three became "get to know Piper Wright".

Piper offered to come with her after Brigid agreed to their interview, which Brigid was overwhelmingly grateful for. She gave a brief tour of Diamond City – a glance of the Upper Stands, which she advised Brigid not to go to unless she wanted to be ripped to pieces by the upper echelon. She showed her the way to the doctor, the Science! Center, the schoolhouse, to the Dugout Inn – where, as she told Brigid, “you can get a room there, but I’d avoid the moonshine” - and now, finally, the marketplace.

Brigid looked out at the marketplace. It was so full of life, despite the ruined city that surrounded it. Logistically, Fenway Park made a great base to set shop and, if Diamond City hadn’t beat her to it by a few hundred years, she probably would have made a home here in the face of total nuclear annihilation.

Brigid looked out to a particular set of seats in the stands, far beyond second base. Nate had taken her to a game there once. He knew that she was into baseball – what he didn’t know was the length that she’d go to get an out of bounds ball that was flying into the seats. Brigid managed to catch it, but after a bit of a heated argument with a patron (that ended up with Brigid’s elbow in her nose) they got escorted out of the stands, listening to the game in the parking lot – and not paying much attention to it after the seventh inning stretch.

Brigid grimaced again at the memory. She wondered what Nate would have said if he were here – something along the lines of “ _Hey, let’s run the bases for old times. We'll bring back the Sox for good! I think I saw a decapitated head that might make a good baseball._ ”

Brigid let out a small chuckle, despite herself.

“What’s so funny?”

The reporter crossed her arms, giving a quizzical eyebrow toward Brigid’s way.

“Nothing.” Brigid shook her head. “Just a little wrapped up in memory.”

-

There was a knock on the door.

Piper rolled her eyes, standing up from her terminal (which was currently midway through a new article entitled “View from the Vault”), but she felt herself begin to bristle. It was only a matter of time before Danny caught onto the ruse of the “trader from Quincy”, she just didn’t expect it to be so soon. A course of adrenaline ran through her – was today finally the day her and Nat were going to be kicked out of Diamond City? Would the mayor really be _this_ petty, or was he just fishing for an excuse?

_If I know that sleazebag, probably both._

Piper crept down the stairs carefully, as to not make them creak and wake Nat, although the thunder from the pouring storm outside that drummed on their roof would have masked it anyway. She walked to the door, closed her eyes, braced herself and opened it –

only to see the Vault Dweller she’d met earlier this day, shivering and drenched to the bone.

Piper cocked her head. “Blue?”

Blue completely avoided Piper’s gaze, looking down to her scuffed boots. Her teeth chattered a bit from the cold. “Hey.”

“...what’s so important that you have to wake me at –“ Piper looked over at the clock on her wall. “- three thirty two in the morning?”

It was a lie, considering she was awake the entire time. But still, the sentiment stood; what the hell was the Vault Dweller doing at her door at fucking _three thirty two_ in the morning?

“Uh.” Blue looked positively sheepish, her face so beet red that it could have been mistaken for a bad sunburn. “Yeah, I’m really sorry about that.”

“That’s not an answer, Blue.”

“I know. I'm really sorry–“

Piper sighed. “If you say ‘sorry’ one more time, I’m closing the door.”

“Alright, fine.” Blue grimaced, raising her hands slightly almost as if to surrender. “I, well. I went to the Dugout Inn, like you suggested.”

Piper cocked her head.”...okay?”

“And, well.” It seemed impossible that Blue could get redder, but she did. “I didn’t realize that, uh. Caps...are your currency nowadays?”

Piper’s brows furrowed in thought until it eventually clicked. “Ah.”

“Yeah.” Blue frowned, looking back out at the pouring rain. “So I couldn’t get a room. I wandered around town a bit, saw those mattresses outside by the mutfruit but they were all taken, and...well...”

Piper gave an even deeper sigh; her bleeding heart wouldn’t allow her to turn the Vault Dweller away from her door. Wordlessly, she swung the door open, beckoning Blue in.

“Thank you.” Blue closed her eyes, sighing with relief. “I promise I’ll be gone in the morning.”

“You’re fine.” Piper started, but, glancing at the soaking wet Vault Dweller who was starting to drip a small puddle at her feet, she said “but change your clothes.”

Blue looked down at her feet, visibly shrinking.

Piper looked at the soaking wet vault suit. “Do you...own anything at all?”

“Uh.” Blue’s voice was barely audible. “A vault suit.”

“That’s all?”

“A gun. Ten bullets. And a dream.”

Piper frowned, unable to do anything but pity Blue in this moment. She knew the exact feeling that Blue was going through; ten years ago, when she finally could get on a caravan to Diamond City, she didn’t have anything but Nat and a very measly amount of caps. But Blue? Not only had she woken to an absolute nightmare, she had, in every sense of the word, nothing.

“Hold on a moment.”

Piper slowly snuck up the stairs again, rummaging through her drawers before she tossed some clothes down the steps – a ratty t-shirt and some pants that were slightly patched over. Nothing flattering, but comfortable enough to sleep in.

“Here you go. Now you own some more stuff.”

Blue looked at Piper at the top of the stairs, her eyes widening. “Piper, I-”

“Blue, it’s just some clothes. You can’t walk around in a vault suit all the time – I can’t imagine that it’s comfortable.”

Blue looked down at the vault suit. “It isn’t.”

“So don’t worry about it.”

“Piper.” Blue frowned. Her tone seemed so utterly defeated that it made Piper pity her even more. “Thank you so much.”

Piper smiled at the Vault Dweller this time. “It’s fine. You can change upstairs, take the bed.”

As soon as Blue’s mouth opened to retort, Piper cut her off with a wave of her hand. “I imagine you haven’t slept in a bed in a while. Mine’s pretty comfy.”

Blue shot Piper a sheepish smile. “Piper, when I eventually make a million caps, I will pay you back everything and then some.”

“I won’t hold my breath.”

Blue’s smile widened, and Piper was filled with this unexplainable feeling of... _something_. She couldn’t put a finger to it, but Blue seemed sorrowful and frightened from the moment she walked through the gates and seeing her happy warmed Piper to the core. The Vault Dweller was certainly attractive, as well, but she had a _beautiful smile._

Blue started up the stairs, wincing as it made a singular _creak_ , gingerly moving up the rest of the way.

“Sorry.” Her voice was barely a whisper.

“Stop saying sorry. You’re okay.” Piper felt immediately relaxed at seeing Blue start to look less like a lost puppy. She turned from the Vault Dweller. “I’ll give you some privacy.”

Blue murmured a “thank you”, and Piper heard the zipper of the vault suit and the shuffling of clothes.

Piper’s eyes widened, and she suddenly was extremely thankful that Blue was turned around because her thoughts took a very sharp left turn. Blue was...attractive. She was taking off her clothes just a few feet behind her. In her bedroom.

 _You hardly know this woman. Don’t fantasize about her._ Piper’s literal occupation was to be descriptive, but she cursed that habit as soon as her imagination took her down that particular path. Not that Piper ever paid mind to the fact that she’d been alone for quite a record-breakingly long time now, but the last time someone was naked in her bedroom was probably an eternity ago.

Her thoughts, however, were immediately broken as she heard the floorboards give a very sudden, loud _creak._

“ _Shit_!”

Piper whipped around. Blue only had pants on, the t-shirt on the floor underneath her feet- and she was falling quickly.

Piper stepped toward the Vault Dweller with reflexes so quick it surprised her. She managed to grab Blue by the small of her back, stopping her a foot before she touched the ground.

Blue’s eyes were wide with shock. Piper tried very, very hard to not stare at the fact that she was currently topless.

“Christ.” Blue gave a half-hearted chuckle. “Now I _really_ owe you one.”

“Uh.” Piper let out some nervous laughter. “Just put it on the tab.”

Blue grinned again.

_That beautiful fucking smile._

The Vault Dweller righted herself, standing up. She bent over to reach for the t-shirt –

and Piper noticed the small patch of silver on the small of her back.

Piper frowned, once again filled with pity for the Vault Dweller. Piper had noticed the silvery palms of the Vault Dweller's hands, but this must have, somehow, been a soul mark of another soulmate entirely - either that, or Blue's singular soulmate was _extremely_ flexible. Whomever this woman’s soulmate was, he – or she, trying not to assume, but she was under the assumption that it was her husband – was long dead by now. Not that Piper gave any thought to the whole concept of soulmates, but it must not be a wonderful feeling knowing that your literal other half died and Blue missed it entirely.

Piper shook her head at the thought, dusting off her jacket –

and then noticed the small patch of silver on her left hand, just about the size of Blue’s mark on her back.

It didn’t even register for a solid minute. Piper felt herself go through a multitude of emotions – shock, denial, anger – in what seemed to equally be a few seconds or a long eternity before dawning upon the penultimate, horrific reality of the situation.

She caught her with her hand. Just barely, but it was enough to –

_You have got to be kidding me._

Piper, very suddenly, was very warm for, again, one of the first times in her life – before something that Blue had said earlier echoed again in her ear, this time with new meaning: “ _I was cryogenically frozen until just recently._ ”

Her soulmate? The Vault Dweller? That she met _just about six hours ago???_

“Fuuuuuuck.” Piper didn’t mean to say it aloud, but it came out anyway – drawn out and completely, absolutely full of frustration.

“What?”

Blue turned around. She was completely dressed now; the shirt was a little baggy on her – and was absolutely adorable in Piper’s pajamas, god damn her. Blue had tied up her hair, blonde wisps falling loosely over blue eyes scrunched in concern as she looked back at Piper.

Piper stuck her newly-silvered hand in her pocket immediately.

“What?! Me? Nothing!” Piper tried to give off a convincing smile, clenching her hand in a fist. “Totally fine. I’m just thinking of...uh. Mentally drafting a new article.”

“Hmmm.” Blue pondered aloud, putting her finger to her lips. “Maybe something about the lack of charity in Diamond City. Or a slandering spread about how a “scavver”” She finger quoted, rolling her eyes as she emphasized the last word “broke into your home, soaking wet, and stole your bed.”

Piper turned toward the stairs, her ears hot, now very much aware about just how long it’d been since someone was in her bedroom because _soaking wet_ and _in her bed_ did a little bit of a number on her.

 _You hardly know this woman,_ Piper reminded herself – but that wasn’t going to be an excuse for much longer. She’d already volunteered to follow Blue around in the Commonwealth until she got acclimated. And then what? At this point, there were only two options: actively try to pursue this – her _soulmate_ who, unbeknownst to Blue, was five feet away from her – or wear a glove for the rest of her life.

She wasn’t sure which one would be more torturous.

Either way, this was going to be something that she’d have to think about in the morning.

“Don’t make a mess or it’ll be the latter.” Piper teased. “But I’m going to bed. Holler if – no, don’t holler, you’ll wake Nat. Come and wake me if you need anything.”

“Thanks, Piper. Sorry that-”

“If you say “sorry” again, I’ll actually publish that spread.”

“Noted.” Blue shot her a wide grin despite Piper's threat. “Well, goodnight then.”

“Goodnight.”

Piper crept down the stairs, collapsing on the couch. She took the glove from her pocket and sheathed her hand just in case Blue woke up early, but restless thoughts kept her awake until long after the sun rose.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: School has been kicking my ass. I'm taking a million credits on top of having a job and I couldn't find the inspiration to write while I was on my winter break for the LIFE of me. Anyone who is willing to kill me and end this misery, contact me ASAP. 
> 
> (that, and I've been procrastinating with Red Dead Redemption. I wanna be a cowboy, baby.)

Piper woke to the sound of humming.

“Hmmm?”

Piper squinted her eyes open – just barely, so the light wouldn’t wake her up fully and, hopefully, so she’d be able to go back to sleep – and was surprised to see the vault dweller, still in Piper’s clothes, stirring something aromatic over her hot plate. Diamond City Radio dinned from the far off radio on Piper’s desk, but Blue hummed along, canorous, on pitch, surprisingly melodic.

“About time you got up.” Blue’s back was turned to Piper, but her voice was cheery. “I was thinking you were going to sleep the entire day away.”

“Sleep the-” Piper suppressed a yawn. “how late is it?”

Piper sat up immediately, feeling a cold spike of horror go through her. “Nat!”

“She went to school already. Mentioned something about you never waking up on time to get her ready for school.” Blue, still turned from Piper, started to pile together some dishes. “It’s 8 AM.”

“8 AM?!?” Piper fell back onto the couch, groaning into the pillow. “That’s inhumane.”

“What is?”

“8 AM. Any time before noon is considered inhumane. I don’t get how some people can wake up that early – I would have flunked school.”

“I’m a morning person.”

Piper groaned into her pillow again, using it to cover her eyes from the blinding light. “We are _not_ going to get along.”

“Well,” Blue swung around to face Piper now, walking over to place a steaming mug on the coffee table. “maybe I can convince you otherwise.”

Piper grabbed the cup – fresh coffee. “Oh! Well, uh...thanks.”

“Not just that!” Blue’s face brightened with excitement, rushing over to her makeshift breakfast station to get a plate for Piper. “I made-” Her voice trailed off to a sing-song tone. “- _Mirelurk_ _omelets_!”

Being cooked for - a very, very foreign thing to Piper. She’d been living as a perpetual bachelorette for she didn’t want to dwell on how long, but it was a very, very long time. Between then were flings, sure, but nothing that lasted over a few weeks.

_Breakfast in bed. As domestic as it can get._

Yesterday – five hours ago, give or take – her two hundred year old soulmate showed up out of nowhere and made her breakfast in bed. Her life had been completely flipped upside down in five hours, and that alone was enough to make her head spin.

 _Soulmate_ . She subconsciously glanced down at her hand, still gloved. Probably would be gloved forever, really, because all of this _soulmate_ business would just be getting in the way of Piper’s work which, thanks to the tide that rippled through Diamond City after her latest article, was starting to pick up. 

And Blue? Her soulmate just died. It’d be unfair of the universe to throw her another thing to tackle; her husband died, her son was stolen and, in the same span of days, she was tossed a random stranger who was supposed to be her soulmate? Someone can only handle so much.

“Uh, thank you?” It looked delicious, but Piper was mostly befuddled. “Wait...you didn’t steal caps from me while I slept to buy breakfast supplies, did you?”

“What? No!” Blue waved her hand, her eyes widening at the accusation. “I scavenged a bit to buy some stuff.”

“Scavenged?” The coffee was slowly working on waking up Piper, but she shot up immediately. “Did you go outside the wall?”

“No? I just scoured the streets of Diamond City a bit. Do you even know how much people litter in this city? Jesus, that’s an article in itself.”

Blue cocked her head slightly. “Why the worry?”

“Because…” Another spike of anxiety coursed through Piper at the entertained thought. “Well, I’m not meaning to sound...patronizing, per say...but, Blue. You barely made it to Diamond City. Inner Boston is a nightmare.”

“I made it here just fine, thank you.” Blue’s brow furrowed in annoyance. “You don’t need to mother me. I’m older than you.”

“By two hundred years, give or take.” Piper closed her eyes, sighing. “Technically, I’ve been living in the Commonwealth longer than you, Blue. Trust me when I say it’s not for the faint of heart.”

“I’m not the faint of heart.” The very cheery Blue had chipped away into very apparent frustration and her voice raised only slightly. “I can take anything that’s thrown at me. And, you’re right, you’re being patronizing.”

“Jesus Christ, I’m not saying that you can’t!” Piper took this special moment to internally curse whatever cosmic power decided to make this bullheaded woman her soulmate.

She closed her eyes, rubbing her temples. “Blue, even I hate being out there alone. I’d just rather have your back instead of you walking out the door like a Radstag on ice.”

“Radstag? What’s that?”

“See that? Right there? _That’s_ exactly why you need to learn more about what’s out there instead of rushing headfirst. For the love of god, get over your ego for a second and accept when someone’s trying to help you, _please_.”

There was a very gravid pause after Piper’s words and Piper decided that if Blue talked back again, soulmate or not, she was getting a swift kick out the door.

However, Blue gave a very heavy sigh.

“Sorry.” The apology seemed forced, but her tone softened as she continued. “I’m not used to feeling...helpless.”

“It’s okay.” Piper kept her tone neutral. “I get it – I mean, I can’t put myself in your shoes, but to the feeling of...powerlessness. I feel like that because of the paper sometimes.”

Blue quirked her eyebrow. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Piper was the one who sighed this time. “I'm out here, risking my life, trying to help other people. I try to write about things that people should stop and pay attention to because, god, there’s so much...corruption, deceit. Right under their noses, too! Sometimes I feel like it’s for nothing because no one seems to care and, when they do, I just get the label of a fear-mongerer, a yellow-paper journalist.”

“Ignorance is bliss, I guess.”

“Ignorance is the reason why papers aren’t selling.”

“I get that.” Blue sat down beside Piper on the couch. “It was hard as a lawyer, too. Sometimes I felt like I'd have found the piece of evidence that’d either damn someone or save them a conviction and, sometimes, another lawyer would just shred it to pieces through some bullshit legal loophole.

“Sometimes...” Blue mussed a hand through tangled blonde hair. “you just have to go for it and do the right thing. What matters is that you stick to your gut feeling, even if everyone thinks it’s wrong.”

The advice was solid but, considering the events that transpired five hours previous, Piper wanted to lay back on that couch and yell into her pillow.

The thing was, it _wasn’t_ the right thing to tell Blue. Was it? Not yet, at least –

 _But when is yet?_ When in the future would Piper unglove her hand and give the grand, dramatic reveal of _“good news, Blue, I'm your one and only and I’ve been here all along”?_ Would there ever _be_ that yet? Did fate already decide that Piper was going to end up with someone she barely knew – and, to make matters worse, the kind of person who woke up at 8 AM? Did she even _want_ there to be a yet? 

Piper looked at the clock on the wall.

_8 AM is too early to wax philosophy._

“Blue...”

“Yeah?”

“I...uh.” Piper wasn’t sure where the sentence was going, but she stopped the train of thought before it could reach station. “Thanks for the omelet.”

“Oh. No problem.” That stupidly beautiful, cheery smile painted its way across her face. “Any time. I love cooking. You’re stuck with me now, so get used to it.”

Piper smiled and nodded, repressing the urge to scream in frustration.

-

Brigid, through nothing short of a miracle, had initially made it to Diamond City (barely) intact. The next step was finding out where Shaun was which, based on Brigid’s lack of knowledge on post apocalyptic Boston, could be anywhere.

Brigid knew Boston, but nothing was the way she left it. The bomb tore across the blue sky with blinding light and she knew Boston would have been affected by it, but the extent of which almost made it unrecognizable.

Piper gave her (gentle) instructions on when to sneak and when to run. When to duck into a building for cover and how to spot if that building was swarming with Super Mutants. They were tiny missions at first – walk to the river, go back to Diamond City. Go up a little north, go back to Diamond City. Scavenge a bit, sell it, finally get some armor, clothes, guns, supplies. Small, simple steps, but enough that Blue felt she was starting to get a grip on what the horror that post apocalyptic life was.

Brigid’s stroke of good luck, she found out, had a frustrating duality. On one hand, she made it to Diamond City: on the other, Shaun wasn’t there. On one hand, there was, conveniently, a private detective who specialized in missing people: on the other, he himself was nowhere to be found.

“So, let me get this straight.” Piper quipped from behind Brigid – she insisted on taking her flank while they explored Boston. “Your son is missing.”

“Yep.”

“And he’s...”

“There’s not even a trail to follow. So we’re finding...what’s his name again?”

“Nick Valentine.” Piper murmured from behind, despondent. “If anyone can find Shaun, it’s him.”

“Right, I’ll trust your opinion on that one.” replied Brigid, who didn’t exactly trust her opinion on that one, but nonetheless, a trained detective would point her in the right direction to find Nate’s murderer and beat his head in to the consistency of chunky salsa. “So, to find a man who hasn’t left a trail to follow, we have to find a detective...who hasn’t left a trail to follow.”

“Your luck has been horrific recently.”

“Not that horrific.” Brigid continued. “I met you, didn’t I?”

It sounded a lot deeper than Brigid thought it would when she said it aloud. She immediately whipped around to face Piper – who had stopped in her tracks a few paces ago, looking slightly flushed.

“To lead me around.” Brigid offered her best attempt at a casual voice. “I probably would have died ten times over by now in the past few days.”

“Uh...yeah.” Brigid internally cursed at Piper’s awkward tone, but then internally sighed when Piper teased. “A bit over a dozen, if I’m counting correctly.”

“Yeah...whatever.” Brigid whipped around, muttering a low, under her breath “ _fuck_.”

“He’s supposed to have been tracking a girl who ran away,” Piper was catching up to Brigid’s pace. “at Park Street Station. Heard of it?”

“You forget I use to live in the “good old days”.” Brigid felt a small heat come over her in recollection of Park Street Station. “Used to ride it. A guy tried to pickpocket me. He ended up with a bloody nose and I was escorted out by security.”

“I’ve noticed you’re...quite the pugilist.”

“Up close and personal.” bragged Brigid, taking the moment to crack her knuckles. “That’s how I like ‘em.”

“Pray, tell me,” Piper inquired. “How did you even control your...temper...in the past?”

She never _violent_ in the past – save for people who tried to pickpocket her. Or mug her. Or steal her outfield ball that was so definitely hers. Or the misogynist men who tried to grab her ass. Or that one instance with that fifty year old woman in the grocery store, and _she_ definitely started that one – 

It was always Nate that calmed her down. He’d talk her through it rationally, get her to think about her actions. They fought sometimes, mostly over stupid shit like “ _did you really drink the last of the milk, you motherfucker?!_ ” but it never lasted more than thirty seconds, always ended with “I’m sorry” - or angry sex. Angry sex was the best. 

But, in all honesty, other than Nate? The thing that calmed her down best was – 

“Yoga.” Brigid sighed. “It’s very calming. Good for the body.”

“I can’t remember the last time I worked out.” Piper laughed in the back. “Minus running for my life, so I guess that’s cardio.”

“You should try it.” Brigid replied. “I’m very flexible because of it. Good for personal strength and agility. Can practically bend my body into any position.”

Piper must have been recollecting something, because she didn’t respond to that. 

The two of them walked in silence for a few blocks to Diamond City until Brigid broke the silence – something that had been on her mind for a few days.

“Hey, Piper?”

Piper caught up to her for a moment. “Shoot.”

“I just...” Blue sighed, looking down at her feet for a moment. “I wanted to say...I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” Piper squinted a little in confusion. “For what?”

“For snapping at you. The day after I stayed at your house when it was raining, right after we met each other.” Brigid looked up at Piper’s face and how the confusion melted to surprise.

“Oh!” Piper raised her eyebrows. “It’s alright.”

“No, not really.” Blue nervously clasped her hands together. “It wasn’t fair. You took me in that night –“

“That was the right thing to do, Blue.”

“Exactly!” Brigid exclaimed. “And I didn’t repay it well. You didn’t deserve it, I’m sorry.”

Piper definitely seemed surprise, but she smiled. “Don’t sweat it, Blue. But...thanks.”

Traveling with Piper was such a breath of fresh air. Not only because Piper was showing her the ropes but, despite not knowing each other, they seemed to fit well. Tactically – because Piper always had her back – as well as the bits of idle chatter they’d had time to spare. The reporter was witty. Admirable in her view of doing the right thing. Clever, funny – 

_and pretty._

Brigid shook her head. She needed to focus on things other than Piper Wright for now. Shaun. Nate’s murderer. They should be at the forefront.

They were. Brigid knew that for a fact. There was nothing that could tear her from her family, but her thoughts were becoming...occupied. Only by the smallest of things; Piper had a wonderful smile, and making her smile felt like she accomplished something grand – and she kept wanting to do it, over and over again…

_Stop fantasizing about her._

Brigid told herself once, twice, but, as Piper’s smile widened into a grin, Brigid worried that was going to become something of a mantra.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Anxiety has been kicking my god damn ass recently. 18 credits, independent research and a 30+ hour a week job is killing me softly with his song. Anyone who would like to kill me for my pocket change, please inquire within.
> 
> (thank god Fallout is - and has been - therapeutic. That, and Skyrim. Thank you, independent game studio Bethany-Esda, for providing me more comfort than any therapist I've had all the way back to Morrowind. also, tbh, getting email alerts about kudos and comments has done wonders for my self esteem, so have an incredibly massive "danke".)

Another day, another mission. Blue was turning from hapless, helpless antique to a hardy hero – and an upstanding citizen, to Piper’s surprise. When it came to sticky situations or times when Blue could have easily taken the money and run, she decided to stick to a nobler route. Sometimes she did it begrudgingly, in honesty, for the vault dweller had little to zero patience and the temper of a Deathclaw on top of that, but Blue was holding herself to a standard that Piper found admirable; it was becoming a rarity to find decent people in the Commonwealth nowadays. Piper had desperately tried before to find someone like that.

And, naturally, the person she was looking for arrived at her doorstep in the rain. And she was her soulmate.

Piper still wanted to scream about it. Her life was completely ordinary before she met Blue – which wasn’t a bad thing, per say, but the fact that it was completely flipped upside down without warning was something she still needed to adjust to. Besides, not that Piper cared about romance, but “I caught you as you almost fell, you were topless, we knew each other for less than half a day” wasn’t exactly how she’d want to find how that she had a soulmate.

It might have been different if Blue and Piper knew each other when they first touched. In Piper’s fantasy, it was always their hands. Despite the fact that the palms of Blue’s hands were silver from her husband, maybe her knuckles would have brushed against Piper’s. Maybe, then, Blue would look down at it, smile that stupidly beautiful, god damn awful smile and they’d talk about it, and it would come about naturally and easy.

_Maybe we wouldn’t talk at all._

Piper shook her head, blinking, trying to pin where that intrusive thought came from but failing miserably.

Of course, life had to be difficult and she’d meet her soulmate within a few hours of knowing her. Of course, it would be in a predicament where the two of them wouldn’t find out simultaneously. There wasn’t a conversation – just a massive secret, and an awkward one at that.

Whenever Piper had a doubt about it, she imagined what she would do if the roles were reversed. It mostly boiled down to the same feeling she felt now – utter annoyance.

Maybe less annoyance than the current situation the two of them were in, but annoyance nonetheless. Blue, the good Samaritan she was, offered to check on the water quality at a treatment plant for a group of Mr. Handys. While, again, Piper admired the charitable quality that Blue had, the trek had them knee deep in disgustingly dirty water.

“Motherfuck.” Blue was stomping angrily, her loud splashes echoing around the building. “Fucking motherfuck. I hate Mirelurks. I can’t wait to cook these up later.”

"As long as it's another omelet," Piper sighed aloud. "I'm content."

Piper desperately clung to the idea that breakfast together wasn’t a domestic, romantic activity between soulmates. It was very casual, very friendly, and something that Piper would do for her friend if she didn’t burn everything she touched.

Which brought about another layer of complexity. Blue was her soulmate, which was worrisome in its own regard, but she was thoughtful, caring, funny, and, now, was becoming her _friend_. Someone she cared about, someone she didn’t want hurt, someone she wanted to genuinely spend time around, which made the situation ten more levels of complicated.

Thankfully, Piper’s inner turmoil was cut off as Blue made it to dry ground and, in a truly dramatic fashion, fell on her knees to it.

“Ground.” Blue’s head fell back as she gazed at the sky, giving a deep, content sigh. “I missed you so much.”

“Blue, the entire ordeal took about twenty minutes.”

“The entire ordeal soaked through every layer of my god damn motherfucking clothing. And for what, robots?! Waste of my god damn time.”

Piper crossed her arms. “You don’t mean that.”

“Ugh, you know I god damn don’t!” Blue glared daggers at Piper. Piper knew the telltale signs of when Blue would throw a ten minute temper tantrum – she just had to bide her time. “But the water seeped through my god damn fucking shoes. Robots don’t have feet, Piper!”

“An astute observation.”

“And they – hey.” Blue scowled. “Don’t you turn against me, too. All I’m saying is that it’s annoying to do the right thing when it’s a personal inconvenience.”

“You can always buy new things.” Piper sat down besides Blue on the ground, cross legged. “You’ve done these guys some good, Blue. Dwell on that for a moment.”

“Hmmmph.”

Blue began to lie down on the grass, her arms crossed behind her head as she made herself comfortable. After a few moments, Blue sighed. “You’re right.”

“I know.”

“Don’t let it get to your head.”

“Too late.”

Piper looked down at Blue again, a small smile creeping to her. Blue had fallen out of her anger and seemed to be unfocused, absentmindedly looking up at the rolling clouds and following them as they passed. She sighed, kicking her soggy shoes off with her heels, and her toes curled in the dead grass.

“You know, it’s stupid.” Blue said with a much calmer sigh.

“What?”

“Whenever I was too stressed, staying up all night with a case or whatever, I’d always sneak to the roof of the office building. No one really knew about it but the maintenance, and they didn’t tell anybody else. I’d just...I don’t know. I’d stare at the clouds. It’s calming.”

Piper looked up for a moment, leaning back on her hands before she felt Blue tugging on her sleeve.

“No, come on.” Blue patted the grass beside her. “From the ground. Like this.”

The touch wasn’t skin on skin. Piper and Blue never touched skin on skin – something Piper desperately tried to upkeep. Between the gloves, scarf and heavy leather jacket, it would have been impossible for the two of them to ever really touch.

_Unless we kissed._

Piper blinked, her teeth gritting as she felt her cheeks go red hot. She forbade herself from dwelling upon it for even a moment, but she couldn’t help but look down at Blue. Her own blue eyes wide, watching as the clouds came and went in an almost childlike wonder. Wet hair sprawled against the ground like yellow roots in equally yellow, dead grass. Smiling, her lips parted in that trademark stupidly beautiful, god damn awful smile.

Blue was great to look at, and definitely would have been a kind of girl that Piper might have eventually asked out if A) she wasn’t so busy with the paper and B) she wasn’t her god damn unknowing soulmate.

Cursing internally at the thought, Piper lay herself down in the grass beside Blue.

Before she could get relaxed, however, Blue turned to face her. “What’s wrong?”

Piper cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

“I dunno.” Blue shrugged. “You seem...troubled.”

Right. That soulmate thing. Piper was starting to find out that, for whatever reason, soulmates shared similar feelings over certain things. Piper felt unnaturally cold for her entire life until Blue came out of cryo-freeze in Vault 111. Piper herself had felt Blue’s melancholic longing when the vault dweller stared at certain buildings; Blue probably felt some kind of emotional attachment to them, but Piper was only feeling it secondhand. There was one particular instance in which a bullet grazed past Blue’s leg and Piper’s own felt sharp with pain; she managed to conceal the fact that she, too, was wincing with every step when she rushed Blue back to Diamond City to see Doctor Sun.

Why people willingly wanted a life split between two people was beyond Piper, and Piper, unfortunately, had been thrust into the thick of it.

“I’m fine.” Piper mustered a fake smile. “Really.”

“Huh.” Blue didn’t sound convinced, but she turned her eyes back to the sky.

Piper finally looked up, following the vault dweller’s gaze. It was picturesque, sure enough – cotton white clouds lazily stretched and rolled across an otherwise clear sky. The water was nearby them, rhythmically lapping onto the shore, the grass swayed in a remarkably mild December wind.

“You know,” Piper replied but didn’t turn to face Blue. “whenever I’d be stuck with writer’s block, I’d sneak to my roof. I didn’t really look at the clouds or anything – I’d just grab a smoke, maybe enjoy a Nuka Cola or a snack, but it was just to escape writing.”

“You can’t exactly sky watch in Diamond City, there’s too much smog. I’m surprised you aren’t all in an iron lung.”

“Yeah, well, it’s your fault, Blue.”

“ _I_ didn’t drop the bomb, Piper. Blame the US government.” Blue half-scolded. “Personally, I don’t want to set the world on fire –”

Piper turned to her side to face Blue, leaning her head on her elbow and, with a smirk, interrupted Blue’s sentence. “You just want to start a flame in my heart?”

Blue also turned to face Piper. She stuck her tongue in her cheek, her lips curling into a Cheshire grin. “If that’s what you’d like.”

Piper’s entire world stopped for a moment.

Blue was _teasing_ . Piper was absolutely sure of it by the tone of her voice. Piper also realized that this was her cue to say something equally teasing back to her companion, to follow her jibe with a rejection of “ _Blue, only in your wildest dreams_ ” or something similar – something that acknowledged this as a _joke_ , for Christ’s sake – but Piper entirely froze on the spot.

Blue must’ve noticed, because her smarmy look immediately faded into something that might’ve resembled confusion. She blinked once, twice, her head cocking as if to wait for Piper’s reaction or some kind of explanation – but when none came Blue finally replied, her voice low and uneasy. “Oh. Uh, Piper...”

“Blue,” Finally. Piper managed to compose herself into saying something. It was weak, but punctuated with a forced, hopefully believable laugh. “only in your wildest dreams.”

Blue still seemed befuddled for a second, then another, then that cocky smile slowly crept back to her face. “In _your_ wildest dreams, Wright. I’m a catch.”

“Eh, more of a miss.”

“I’ll throw you back in the water.”

The two laughed. Piper tried to discern if there was any weird tension between them, but Blue seemed normal enough. Piper’s inner voice, on the other hand, was screaming at her from within.

Logically speaking, Blue was her friend – maybe on her way to becoming Piper’s _best_ friend. Blue – her platonic friend – was great to be around. Between explorations, tasks and viscera, these stolen moments of calm, quiet and laughter were what Piper cherished most, and they were definitely moments that Piper enjoyed every second of.

Which scared her.

“Piper,” That “shared feeling” thing about soulmates must have sparked up again, because Blue gave a soft smile and murmured softly beside her. “I really like spending time with you.”

“Oh!” Piper squeaked in surprise. “I mean, me too! I do.”

“Nice.” Blue turned her attention to the grass, absentmindedly tearing at it with her fingers. “Here I am thinking you’re just in this because you pity me. Or it’s just for a story.”

“Nope.” Piper shrugged. “I’m stuck in this now. Till death do we part.”

A moment later, when Piper realized what she had just said, she let out the deepest, most incredibly frustrated sigh.

-

“Here. Catch.”

Brigid tossed the Nuka Cola overhanded to Piper, who was several feet away. Her eyes widened and she gave out a surprised yelp as she rushed toward where it would land, barely catching it by the bottleneck.

“Really, Blue?!” Piper huffed. “Tossing a glass bottle at me?”

“I knew you’d catch it.” Brigid shrugged. “Besides, you seem like you need it.”

“You were barely right. But just barely.”

“I stopped listening at ‘right’, Wright.”

Piper rolled her eyes, refusing to comment, which made Brigid’s smirk widen.

The sun had long fallen since their excursion at Graygarden. It was getting to the point of night that, Brigid had since learned while traveling with Piper, that monsters came out to play. The stealthiest of enemies melded into the shadows along the walls and ruin, waiting patiently to strike. Not that it was ever safe to traverse through the Commonwealth – especially in the ruins of Boston – but, at night, it was especially so. After too many gunfights and barely sneaking past a behemoth in Boston Common, the two decided to camp for the night.

“Goodneighbor will have to wait another day, I guess.” Piper sighed as she relaxed on the bar stool, leaning on her hand, the other one tapping against the wooden counter top.

“Goodneighbor isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.” Brigid continued to rummage behind the bar, desperately trying to find any drop of booze that wasn’t looted. “We’ll just hole up for the night.”

Piper looked around at the small bar – relatively quiet, save a few skeletons. “Did you ever go here? Before the bomb?”

“What, ‘Prost’?” Brigid looked around at the aforementioned hole in the wall kind of bar. “Nah. I wasn’t much of a bar type.”

“Get into too many fights?”

“It only happened once.” Brigid snarled at the memory. “Or twice. Fuckin’ St. Patrick’s day – brings out the worst kind of people.”

Piper pursued her lips. “Saint...who?”

“Christ.” Brigid blinked once, twice. “Boston used to be Irish as all hell. Which lead to many, many, many a bar fight. Not to stereotype, of course – I’m Irish. Like every other true Bostonian.”

“Cait’s Irish, too.” Piper popped off the cap of her Nuka Cola, the drink letting out a sharp hiss. “Maybe the stereotype is correct.”

“Gee,” Brigid thought aloud, tapping her lips before giving a faux-menacing look toward Piper. “I’ve _really_ been itching to get into a bar fight recently. Can’t quite place why...”

Piper leaned over the counter, propped on her elbows, raising an eyebrow at Brigid. Her voice was dark, taunting as she retorted “I’d like to see you take me on physically.”

Brigid used the moment to whip around and resume her search so Piper wouldn’t see how downright scarlet Brigid’s cheeks turned at that comment.

Brigid was much too busy to divert her attention on anything other than avenging Nate and finding Shaun. She fell asleep every night thinking about it – that, or it would consume her thoughts and keep her up all night. Brigid didn’t have anything when she came out of the vault (unless she counted Codsworth) except a bloodthirsty rage that would only be quenched when she’d stand over the mysterious, bald, scarred man’s broken body in front of her.

Piper, however, was becoming a significant, confusing outlier.

Brigid, at least, didn’t have to worry about feeling like a charity case and that Piper was only following her so she’d survive. Piper and her had been spending almost every day together since they’d first met, save when Blue would occasionally make her way back to Sanctuary or Piper would head back down to Diamond City work on a new edition of the paper. It was maybe too much time together, in honesty, because Brigid now had to adjust to the fact that someone who was originally just her tour guide of how to survive total atomic annihilation was becoming her _friend_. Maybe her only friend, if she were honest.

Which scared her.

Her friend. Her friend that she was spending every day with. Her friend who talked in her sleep, had a rampant sweet tooth and a horrible caffeine addiction, was constantly scribbling notes (wearing gloves, which must have been uncomfortable to write in, but Brigid wasn’t going to ask). She had the most adorable face when she was writing; her tongue would stick out of the corner of her mouth, she’d squint her eyes at her notebook, and either murmur “Yes!” triumphantly or “No!” despondently, depending on how whatever she was writing was going.

Brigid tried not to stare at her face for very long nowadays, but Piper was a magnet for Brigid’s attention – and much deservedly, because Piper was unique, intriguing and, dare Brigid say it, alluring. It was another thing that scared her.

“Honestly, I wish I knew you a while back. I’ve had to scare off too many creeps in the Dugout.” Pondering for a moment as she took a sip of her Nuka Cola, Piper added “Not too many in Goodneighbor, actually. For a bunch of criminals, they know how to respect women.”

“Honor among thieves, maybe.” Brigid began. She grabbed a rag from behind the bar, using it to wipe the counter top as she leaned on the bar. “What’s troublin’ ya, kid?”

“Just...” Piper sighed deeply. “ _Men.”_

“Amen to that.” Brigid nodded in reply. After a moment, Brigid followed it up with “Are you...seeing anyone?” It was childish and Brigid hated herself for it, but she wanted to know.

Piper shook her head. “Only if you count the paper.”

“Good for you. Relationships are horrible.”

Piper’s brows furrowed in confusion. “Weren’t you...married? Not to intrude on your romantic life or anything.”

“That was...different.” Brigid became unfocused for a moment, her gaze turning to nowhere in particular as she took a breath. “He’s –“

Brigid had to correct herself, but every time she did it felt like an icy spike being driven into her chest. “He _was_ my soulmate.”

Piper paused a moment, half frowning in sympathy. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up sore feelings.”

“It’s okay.” Brigid closed her eyes a moment to compose herself. “Soulmates aren’t just a relationship. They’re...I dunno. They’re your _soulmate_. You know?”

Piper shifted in her seat, looking a little uncomfortable, but returned with a shaky “Yeah. I can imagine.”

Piper seemed off. More than off – fearful? Anxious? Piper, Brigid had found, was incredibly easy to read, almost to the point that Brigid could guess how she was feeling. Maybe Brigid was just a sponge to her feelings; she herself was starting to feel fearful and anxious in that very moment as well, but Brigid couldn’t quite place why.

In an attempt to change the mood, Brigid unbuckled the Pip Boy from her arm. Turning a dial to Diamond City Radio’s signal, she placed it on another corner of the bar top, and the uncomfortable, eerily silent bar filled with the crooning of Billie Holiday.

“You know,” Brigid brought back the original conversation, flexing her biceps for emphasis. “I’ll gladly beat up a guy for you. Just point him out and say the word.”

Piper’s subtle worry seemed to melt away, and she gave an earnest grin. “Start with Mayor McDonough.”

Brigid bit her lip. “Consider it Mayor Mc-Done-ough.”

Piper threw her head back and groaned. “That was...absolutely horrible. You know that, right?”

“Come on, it was a little funny.” Brigid leaned over the bar on her elbows, wiggling herself closer to Piper. “Admit it.”

Piper tilted her head back toward Brigid, her face confident and ready to tell Brigid off, likely, before it stopped very suddenly. Brigid was leaned toward her, and she stood absolutely still.

Brigid froze in place, and Piper seemed to as well. The world stopped, the radio faded away into nothing and, suddenly, the only thing that existed was Piper, who was less than a foot away from her.

Brigid wasn’t sure if she should move or if she should say something. She wasn’t sure if she should pack up and run out the door or –

The behemoth waiting for them outside suddenly became much less scary than the current predicament Brigid found herself in.

Neither of them moved. A second passed by and as they continued to, another kind of anxiety was creeping up on her – definitely her own, though she saw it peel across Piper’s face as well, and –

Piper was the first to break the silence. Her voice only had the slightest waver, but she teased back at Brigid “I never would admit it.”

“Great.” Brigid responded without thinking but, backing up, she babbled “I mean, not great that you wouldn’t admit something. I mean, you do you, but –“

Piper seemed even more perplexed at Brigid’s comment, sharply inhaling as if she were punched in the gut. Brigid cursed at herself, taking a moment to find proper wording, and clarified with “But, if you’re going to kid yourself and say I’m not an outright comedian...well, you’re kidding yourself.”

Piper’s unnameable look wiped away – Brigid could have sighed in relief as the awkward situation seemed to now be behind them – as she glared at Brigid, narrowing her eyes. “Like I said, I’ll never say anything.”

“You don’t have to.” Brigid shot her a cheesy grin. “You’re incredibly easy to read. Almost like – wait.”

A glint in the corner of Brigid’s eye caught her attention. Bending over to paw toward it, she emerged victorious – an unopened bottle of wine.

“Finally!” Brigid could have collapsed with relief, but she grabbed two whiskey glasses from behind the bar. “Some god damn alcohol. In a bar. Who would have thought?”

Uncorking it and pouring a hefty portion into what Brigid would designate as her glass, she grabbed the other one and motioned it in Piper’s direction. “Want some?”

Piper looked at the glass, then to Brigid, then once more. “Just one. But not as much as you poured yourself, alkie.”

“Suit yourself.” Brigid poured her a glass of red. Without waiting for Piper to sip hers, Brigid brought her own glass to her lips and chugged the entire thing, ignoring Piper’s half bemused, half concerned look as she poured herself another one.

Brigid definitely needed a drink.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: might do one more chapter if midterms don't kill me lol remind me why I decided to go back to school in the fuckin first place.
> 
> I was looking back. Is it a little weird that I've written the same pairing for literal years? The Fallout games have always been somewhat theraputic and I don't feel confident enough to publish my other creative writing online. Maybe I'll finally move onto some fuckin Overwatch or something, I dunno. 
> 
> (anyone else feeling some hella seasonal depression??? i'm one of those 10% of people that feel seasonal affective disorder in spring and summer so it's not a good time for me, bro)

“That went just about well as I had planned.”

“That’s because you didn’t _plan_ anything, Blue.” Piper was walking further behind Brigid, but Brigid could hear her defeated utterance from where she was. “Of course it didn’t go to plan!”

“Yeah, well, the plan was going to hell from the minute we walked through the fucking door. Had to improvise.”

Piper scoffed. “You’ve got a sailor’s mouth, you know.”

“And you’ve got a silver tongue.” Brigid rolled her eyes. “You should have been the one who tried to talk us out of there.”

“Are you blaming me?” Brigid could tell that Piper’s ire was beginning to rise. She’d seen it before and it had that tone of voice; her face was probably turning as red as her coat. “Because if you are-”

Brigid groaned loudly. She knew she had no right to feel angry as well, but she still gritted her teeth to prevent herself from snapping. “I’m not blaming anything! It just serves me right for trying to be the nice guy for once.”

Finding Nick Valentine didn’t go exactly as planned. Despite the trials and tribulations of traversing through a gangster hideout (an underground vault, which definitely unsettled Brigid from the get-go) and finding Nick Valentine (a metal man, which definitely surprised Brigid when she met him), it was their final encounter with the man of the hour, Skinny Malone, that did them in.

Which definitely didn’t go well at all.

The two of them made their way to Diamond City relatively late; Blue, using her newfound knowledge that Piper had taught her, lead the way back. They offered to meet Nick Valentine at his office back at Diamond City, but a few brushes with raiders had held them up, and now night had long fallen. Darkness wound its way through Diamond City and coated it like a thick paint. Only the lights of the marketplace and neon signs still lit illuminated the city but, at this hour, they began to fade softly like a gradually decreasing pulse. The moon shined high above them, and the stars hung in clusters by her side.

Despite the horrors of post apocalyptic Boston, there were small positives. Brigid couldn’t remember the last time she saw the night sky in smog-filled 21st century Boston. The pavement was beginning split open and plants would push themselves through the cracks – life slowly rebuilding itself from the horror of total atomic annihilation, which was inspiring to say the least.

Brigid tried _very_ desperately not to think of the reporter behind her among the things she treasured of post apocalyptic Boston, but the thought came to her naturally. 

“You at least tried to talk them down.” Piper loudly sighed behind Brigid. “There was an _attempt_ for peace.”

“Yeah, well, half of me was leaning toward bashing their skulls in. I was trying to save bullets, is all.”

Brigid turned around to face Piper who, predictably, had a horrified look upon her face at Brigid’s comment, her eyes wide.

“I’m kidding.” Brigid shot her a half-smirk. The shock didn’t clear from Piper’s face, so Brigid followed up with “I don’t like to kill someone unless I really have to.”

It was true. Brigid had absolutely no problem getting into a physical scrap and knocking someone out but when she first walked out of the vault, killing another person made her physically sick. As time passed, Brigid became unfortunately accustomed to it, which made it slightly easier but nonetheless upsetting. Brigid was short tempered and blindly so at that, but she never thought she would become the kind of wastelander that killed a person and enjoyed it.

_Except him._

She dreamed about killing the bald man with the scar who killed Nate almost to the point of Shaun becoming a distant memory. He killed her soulmate, and he was going to pay. She fantasized about it over and over again – the light starting to fade from his eyes, twitching in a pool of his own blood, broken, begging her not to kill him – 

It almost made Brigid uncomfortable how gruesomely she wanted him to die. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to control herself when she got to confront him, which both terrified and _excited_ her.

Piper jogged up to Brigid’s side as they descended the steps into the city and began to approach the office of Publick Occurrences. “I know you wouldn’t. And, by the way, you _are_ the nice guy. You’ve been doing a lot of good.”

Brigid smirked again. “I didn’t realize you were keeping a record.”

“Well, I am.” Piper replied in earnest; Brigid would have sworn she sounded proud by the tone of her voice. “And you’re...well. You’re great, Blue.”

A silence passed between them. Brigid couldn’t help but fixate on Piper in the moment. She had such a breathtaking smile, and the fact that Brigid was the one that was making her smile filled with her with an unnameable, lighthearted feeling. 

Piper had stuck by Brigid through many a sticky situation. She was a good friend and, on top of that, she was absolutely wonderful.

Brigid tried not to dwell on these thoughts or even entertain them. That would bring them to light, and that would mean Brigid would have to acknowledge what exactly Piper meant to her – even though she knew it was a complicated, likely unrequited...notion.

The reporter looked to the door of the office. “Blue, you know I’m ready to follow you and find your son. Just a gentle suggestion, but maybe after a night’s rest-”

“Wait.”

Maybe it was the fact that being alone scared her, maybe it was that Brigid didn’t want to see Piper leave just yet. But regardless –

“I could definitely use a drink after tonight.” Brigid nodded her head in the direction of the Dugout. “Want to go? I’ll pay.”

Piper furrowed her brows, seemingly in some kind of contemplative thought, before teasing back, “What, so you’ve finally got money now?”

“Well.” Brigid’s face heated up, clasping her hands together. “Not a lot of money, per say.”

Piper’s voice deepened in exaggeration. “’ _Piper, when I eventually make a million caps, I_ _wil_ _l_ _pay you back everything and then some!_ _’_ Pffft _._ ”

“Hey!” Brigid shot back, her cheeks turning redder in shame. “I’m working on it!”

“You can pay me back with a drink.” Piper winked. “But just one. I’m not looking to stay out late.”

“Right.” Brigid gritted her teeth again, very much denying what a simple _wink_ from Piper did to her. “Just one.”

“One.”

-

It was a lot more than just one.

Brigid had never truly gone drinking with Piper before. She didn’t even know if Piper was a drinker but, as the two kept talking, laughing, and swapping stories of Pre-War America versus Piper’s wild behind-the-scenes adventures writing the paper, the drinks kept coming. 

Piper, as it turned out, was both an adorable drunk and a lightweight.

“Alright.” Brigid wasn’t the strongest, per say, but she could barely manage to wrap Piper’s arms around her neck as she carried the reporter back to her home bridal-style. “I got you.”

Piper’s face was buried in Brigid’s chest and muttered something under her breath inaudibly.

“Can’t hear you, Piper.” Brigid teased back at the reporter in her arms.

“I said that you sure do, Blue. Got me.” Piper lazily looked up at Brigid, her eyes dull and voice thick with tiredness. “Ya got me. That’ssssall.”

Brigid rolled her eyes, but still responded with “You’re a cute drunk.”

“Well, you’re a CUTE.” Piper further nuzzled herself into Blue as if for emphasis. “Period. How ‘bout that? You’ve got -” Piper hiccuped. “You’ve got _no_ idea.”

“Whatever you say.”

They eventually made it back toward Publick Occurrences. Brigid had to avoid kicking down the door in a desperate attempt to not wake Nat, as her hands were currently occupied, but Piper’s sister was sitting on the couch still when they snuck in.

“Brigid.” She nodded in the direction of the vault dweller.

“Nat.” Brigid readjusted the very-drunk reporter currently in her protection so she wouldn’t slip. “Shouldn’t you be asleep? You have school tomorrow.”

Nat ignored Brigid’s maternal comment. “She drunk again?”

Brigid stopped a moment from climbing up the steps at the comment, looking down at Piper in her arms. “Is this a frequent thing?”

“No.” Nat fixated her gaze on her sister. “One time, though, she said she drank the entire still of moonshine at the inn because of a story. She told me she’d tell me the whole thing when I was older.”

“Well, I’ll ask her and tell you all about it.” Brigid looked at Piper as well. “You should definitely go to bed, though. Education is important. I went to law school and my professor would always tell me, ‘A good night’s sleep means a good day’s grade!’”

“Whatever.” Nat crawled back to her den behind the brick wall.

“Goodnight to you too, Nat!” Brigid called over to her, but she didn’t get a response.

“Kids these days.” Brigid muttered under her breath as she carried Piper up the rest of the stairs. She plopped her down on her bed, and Piper was asleep as soon as she touched it. 

Feeling the strain in her arms at carrying her to her home, Brigid looked down at Piper in her drunken, unconscious stupor and muttered aloud to no one “You’re lucky you’re cute.”

Brigid knelt down, making fast work to untie Piper’s shoes and put them carefully beside the bed. She took her hat off next, placing that on her desk.

She didn’t want to undress Piper, of course. Not while she was drunk. Staring at her jacket, though, she realized that that was probably going to be uncomfortable to sleep in. Carefully, she pried the thick leather coat off her body and hung it over her chair.

Another thing came to Brigid that she very much tried not to think about.

There was absolutely no reason why she should be allowing herself to dwell on the idea. Brigid wanted to walk out the door, but her entire body turned to stone. 

In the few weeks she’d known Piper, they’d never touched. Not skin on skin, at least – Piper had a habit of wearing gloves for a strange reason. The coat was also thick. The only way they’d ever touch was if Brigid finally worked up the courage to kiss Piper, and that would never happen.

 _Shit. Do I want to kiss Piper?_ That was another thought for another day and Brigid would deal with that much, much later. 

There was another thing that Brigid wanted to desperately find out, though.

Brigid took a deep breath as her trembling fingers worked the glove off of Piper’s hand. Her eyes were shut tight as, feather light, she brushed the back of her hand against Piper’s. _Just in case_.

It would be one or the other. Fifty-fifty. Brigid’s stomach turned at the possibility of either possibility.

Brigid had only heard of someone having two soulmates before – she’d never seen it in person. They were, most likely, not soulmates. Nate was her soulmate, and he would always be a part of her – but he’d want this for her. He would want her to be happy.

And if Piper was another soulmate? Brigid knew she had no reason to think so, but there was a gut feeling that she couldn’t name that kept saying _maybe._ In that fantasy, she’d open her eyes and both of their hands would be a mutual shimmery silver, Brigid would let Piper sleep and come back the next morning to her with flowers in hand and take her into her arms. She’d bury her head into her neck, murmuring against freckled skin that she was _hers._

If Blue wasn’t forcing herself still, she definitely would have jumped at the thought. _That fantasy is definitely another thought for another day._

Taking another deep breath to ground herself, Brigid opened her eyes.

The back of her hand was unchanged. So was Piper’s, and that’s when Brigid noticed the silver patch on Piper’s hand.

_It’s not her._

Of course it’s not her. Piper had someone else. How could she not? She was smart, funny, compassionate, absolutely beautiful. Brigid cursed at herself for even entertaining the thought.

“Was probably overthinking it.” Brigid’s voice was barely a murmur. She didn’t say it out loud to anything in particular, nor to the heavily sleeping Piper. It was mostly to herself; if she said it aloud, it was real. If she said it aloud, she could finally forget about it and she could finally, _finally_ stow away whatever feeling Brigid thought she was developing deep, deep down so it would never see the light of day again.

Nate was her soulmate and would probably be her only soulmate. Brigid reached for her left hand, her fingers smoothing over the gold band of her wedding ring – her last connection to him.

Turning her hands over, she stared at the soul mark that still shimmered in her palms as silvery as the day they first showed up. Finally, Brigid looked over at Piper – her best friend, soundly asleep – but, since waking up in the cold and empty vault, Brigid had never felt so alone.

-

Piper woke up to the worst headache in her life.

She let out a loud groan, regretting it as soon as she did because the sound was shrill and pierced through her skull. Her hand immediately clapped to her head as to cover her eyes – 

Her bare hand.

Piper whipped it away, looking down at her bare hands. Blue must’ve taken her home last night, looking at her shoes on the floor and her jacket over her chair. She also must’ve taken off her gloves too, which filled Piper with an intense dread that took forefront over her hangover.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

Piper suddenly jolted at the surprise of Blue’s voice calling from downstairs. “You’re awake?”

“I -” Piper’s entire body was frozen. “Yeah. But I – I think I’ll stay up here.”

“It’s alright. I’ll come to you.”

Before Piper could protest, Blue made her way up, the _creak_ of the stairs stabbing at Piper’s hangover once again, each one making her wince.

Blue had a can of purified water for Piper along with what looked to be a veggie Mirelurk omelet and a small medicine cup full of a syrupy clear liquid. “Doctor Sun recommended Med-X for a hangover. I was surprised, too. Just a little, though – don’t want you too doped up.” She handed the medicine to Piper first before putting the plate on Piper’s desk. “I had a headache this morning, too. Maybe we’re secretly twins or something.”

Piper took it like a shot, and was surprised at how quickly it took effect. “Jesus. Remind me to thank Doctor Sun later.”

“Oh, you’re welcome.” Blue crossed her arms, voice thick with sarcasm. “Don’t fucking thank me or anything, I just carried you the entire way back.”

“You carried me?” Piper tried to remember the last portion of last night, but she came up blank. “Oh god, I’m sorry.”

“Eh, you’d do it for me.” Blue shrugged then, teasingly, added “If you could, that is. Wimp.”

“Hey! I’m not a wimp!” Piper swatted at Blue with her hand. Blue’s attention completely diverted to Piper’s hand, the jovial look melting away from her face.

“Hey.” Blue sat herself down at Piper’s office chair, swiveling it until she faced Piper. “Not to – uh – not to intrude or anything. Tell me if I need to mind my own business, but -”

She nodded in the direction of Piper’s hand. “Who’s that?”

It took several seconds for the thought to compute in Pipers head, both because of the hangover and because of the fact that Piper had been desperately trying to forget all about that mark on her hand. 

Which has been very hard to forget about. The more that time passed, the closer they were getting. Blue was funny, witty and, despite having an incredibly small fuse, kind. She had the most beautiful blue eyes, she had the most beautiful smile, she was beautiful, period. 

And she was her soulmate.

It would be easy now. All Piper had to say was “ _It’s you_ ” and this whole thing would be resolved. Blue would be confused but maybe, _maybe_ there was a version of that fantasy that ended with Piper grabbing her hand, rushing her into her arms, one hand woven into Brigid’s beautiful blonde hair and the other one grabbing her face, murmuring between kisses that Piper was _hers_. 

Piper blinked, her own thoughts shocking her into sitting upright.

The more that time passed as they adventured together, the more anxious that Piper got about telling Blue the truth. The more anxious she got about telling the truth, the more she put it off. So on and so forth, repeat for, most likely, ad infinitum. 

Blue might get mad. She got mad over everyday annoyances in the drop of a hat; Blue had once grumbled and was irritable for a good part of an afternoon once after realizing she couldn’t find a single piece of adhesive for a piece of armor she wanted to make. Piper didn’t want to think of the reaction Blue would have if she told her that she’d been holding back the fact they were soulmates.

Maybe Blue didn’t even care about her that way. Having a soulmate doesn’t mean you fall in love at first touch, because Piper sure didn’t. 

Not yet, at least, because the horror was dawning upon Piper that Blue could, very easily, be the kind of person that Piper could fall in love with.

They were too busy to be in love – if they _were_ in love, that is. There was too much on their schedule. Blue currently had a son to find and a soulmate to avenge; the last thing she needed was yet another distraction, yet another thing to worry about.

This was not supposed to happen. This was definitely not supposed to happen. It was completely unfair to the both of them – after everything they've both been through – that they ended up being soulmates.

Piper realized at that moment that she hadn’t spoken in a good while.

“Oh!” Piper looked down at her hand, internally grimacing. “She’s -”

“She?” Blue blinked, taken aback. 

Piper’s eyebrow raised, pretending to scoff at Blue. “Does that surprise you?”

“I mean, we never talked about it.” Blue shrugged. “I was just curious, but, y’know, it’s 2287. No need to get wound up in someone’s sexuality when there’s a Deathclaw at your door.”

“Very much that.” Piper reiterated, now suddenly wondering whether Blue was straight or not because of having a husband.

_Well, you might know the answer already, because she’s your soulmate._

Piper shook the thought away.

“She’s...” Piper tried very delicately to find the words that could describe Blue. Despite being a reporter and writing for a living, she was coming up dry for something that could compare, so she offered a vague “She’s wonderful.”

“Hmmm.” Blue nodded, scooching the chair toward Piper. “Interesting. Why haven’t I seen this mystery woman around?”

Piper held back a laugh. “What, I have to take her home to you to see if you approve?”

“We have to have the proper paperwork done. I’m a notary.”

“Well, you -” Again, Piper tried to find the words. “You can’t. It’s complicated.”

Blue cocked her head – adorably, too, god damn her. “How’s it complicated?”

“I – well, I don’t know how she feels about me.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Blue seemed flabbergasted. “She’s your _soulmate!_ ”

“Like I said, it’s complicated.”

“Well, as someone who has,” Blue began the thought but, realizing what she said, closed her eyes and sighed. “ _had_ a soulmate, it’s definitely complicated.”

She mussed her hand through her hair, scratching her head. “I mean, it never works out right away. Everyone who says that is lying. It’s no different than meeting anyone else in your life but...with your soulmate...for lack of a better term, it’s right. It always feels right, always feels natural.”

Blue looked down at the floor. “And, usually, it works out in the end because...it’s not that they’re your other half or anything. That’s another lie. They’re just...a perfect compliment to yourself. You can live without your soulmate, people do. But...I can’t imagine a life where I didn’t have Nate. He was perfect.”

Piper internally cringed. Yet another reason to doubt this whole thing. Blue carried Nate with her every step she took, right there on her hands. How could she not think of him – and how could she move on?

Piper refused to acknowledge that she _also_ carried her soulmate with her every step she took, right there on her hand, and she couldn’t stop thinking about Blue, either.

Interrupting her thoughts yet again, Blue looked up at Piper now, her gaze warming as she gave a small smile. “I hope it works out between you two. And I hope she realizes what she has, because you’re a hell of a person, Piper Wright.”

Piper couldn’t help the deep, shaky breath she took, closing her eyes. “Thanks, Blue.”

“Anytime. I’m happy to help.”

The world splitting headache was a dull thud, but Piper still felt herself spinning.

People could live without their soulmate all the time. Blue had just told her that. And Piper could, too, if it came down to it – she just couldn’t understand why the idea of that stung as much as it did.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Super short chapter? Super short chapter!!!
> 
> (Midterms are over. Depression has still hit every button on the elevator so the way from the bottom of my pit is gonna take a while, but at least there's a lot less to be anxious about. I swear to god I'm gonna end this soon bc no one needs a FO4 Divine Comedy length soulmate AU, there's got to be SOMETHING else to write about. I guess this chapter is mostly Piper?)

_Bang_.

The bullet hit Kellogg right between the eyes. Not even a second later his knees buckled beneath him and his body fell to the ground like a rag doll, face first. A sickly puddle of blood began to seep from his head, slowly expanding and, eventually, reaching Brigid’s much-worn shoes.

Despite wanting – no, _craving_ – this man’s death from the moment she realized he killed Nate, the only thing she had dreamed of and kept her going these past few weeks, everything was the same. Nothing would happen. Nothing would change, and Kellogg’s death, essentially, now meant nothing.

Nate was still dead.

And Shaun, apparently, was in the clutches of the Institute.

Brigid took a deep breath inward in a desperate attempt to calm herself, but that turned into a small sob.

Reloading the .10mm she used to kill Kellogg, she fired another bullet into his body, and another, and another, each shot muffling the sound of her heavy crying.

Very distantly, she could hear a muffled voice – Piper’s. “Blue.”

Brigid fired until the gun was empty, her last shot a dull click of the trigger.

Brigid felt a hand on her shoulder – Piper’s. “Blue, it’s okay. Come on, let’s go.”

Her senses slowly began to return to her and Brigid nodded, turning to Piper. She took a few steps toward her - but quickly turned around and, for good measure, kicked Kellogg’s dead body in the ribs once, twice, three times until she followed Piper out the way they came, sitting down and screaming into her hands as soon as the door closed behind them.

-

“Blue.”

She was absolutely inconsolable. Fat tears ran down her face and her entire body heaved with each heavy, loud cry. Piper locked the door behind them, then lowered herself until she sat leaning on the wall beside Blue. “Blue...it’s alright -”

“It is NOT fucking alright, Piper!” Blue roared, her voice still wavering as she did. “It doesn’t matter. It didn’t even fucking matter!”

The journey to Fort Hagen was a nightmare. Kellogg’s trail was all over the Commonwealth so it was easy to find him, but the two of them fought a slew of synths in order to get to him. He taunted Blue as they progressed through – each time Piper would look over and see Blue’s jaw tighten, her entire body stiffen. When they eventually made it to him, Kellogg initially wanted “to talk”, but that was before he dropped the bomb that Shaun was in the Institute.

Then all hell broke loose, and here they were.

Blue finally looked up to face Piper. Her eyes were bloodshot, cheeks entirely wet from tears. “He killed Nate, and Nate’s still dead.” With one last high pitched whine, she hid her face in her hands and gave another heaving sob. “I couldn’t save him.”

“Blue.” There wasn’t much else to say, nor something that Piper could even remotely think of to say during a situation like this. All Piper knew was that, regardless of being her soulmate, her best friend was sitting beside her in hysterics. “It’s – you couldn’t have saved him, but you...avenged him. And now you know where Shaun is. This isn’t the end of the world.”

Piper was never really the kind of person who would want to vengeance on someone for something. She could understand to an extent why Blue would feel the way that she did – even if it sickened her a little to watch. Sure, it certainly wasn’t anywhere close to a merciful death, but Blue did it for her husband and, now that it happened, it was as if she had stepped out of that vault all over again. She was fearful, broken.

Piper wondered for a single moment if she could ever do something like that if her own soulmate – Blue – was killed, but she shuddered at the thought of her dying.

“It feels like it is.”

“Blue,” Piper gave an extremely weak smile, sighing. “It’s going to be okay. And besides, you already saw the end of the world.”

Blue stilled. Piper worried that she might have said something wrong and froze, but Blue stopped crying for a moment and gave a small laugh.

“Yeah.” she sniffled. “I guess I did.”

Good. She wasn’t sobbing anymore. “and...God, this is so corny, but it’s all going to be all right. I’m here for you.”

Blue closed her eyes and let out a long sigh. “Thank you, Piper. I really appreciate that.”

“No problem.” Very cautiously, almost as if she was going to touch hot metal, Piper reached out her hand to give a friendly pat on Blue’s shoulder. “I really am. I mean, I get if this isn’t the kind of place, but if you ever want to talk, I'll listen.”

“I just feel so weak.” Apparently this _was_ the kind of place to talk. “Like I failed.”

“Hey, you didn’t fail anything.” Piper lowered her hand to initially just touch the back of Blue's, but Blue grabbed it quickly. She wove her fingers into Piper’s gloved hands; despite Blue knowing about her soul mark, she’d surprisingly gotten used to finger-less gloves and decided to make it a regular part of her outfit. “If anything, you did exactly what you set out to do. I’m sure-”

Piper paused a moment. “I’m sure Nate would be happy.”

“I don’t know if ‘happy’ is the right word.” Blue meekly shrugged. “Nate probably would have scolded my marksmanship. But I think...I think he would have done the same thing for me. If I was the one that died.”

“You love each other.” There was no past tense. Piper knew that Blue still loved Nate – she’d even said so to her before, saying that he would always be a part of her. There was an absolutely selfish part of Piper that made her feel only the slightest bit of hurt because of that fact.

Blue wasn’t hers. Probably wouldn’t ever be because of that fact, as well as the fact that Piper would absolutely _never_ fess up about the whole soulmate thing at this point. It had reached its expiration date. Blue loved Nate. Her other half that she loved hard enough to spend weeks tracking a man and avenging for him.

Nate had loved her, too, and for good reason. Sure, Blue was violent tempered – now confirmed to be just plain violent – and thick-skulled, but she was so intelligent, a quick learner and even quicker on her feet. Hilarious and devilishly witty. Begrudgingly kind but kind all the same because, deep down, the reporter knew she had a big heart. An amazing cook, to boot. An amazing friend. Beautiful – absolutely beautiful, like a beacon of light that drew Piper in and fixated her. Someone that Piper could spend all day with and enjoy, someone she could spend all night with and savor. The kind of person who she trusted to engage in any kind of conversation as well as the person she could slip into comfortable silence with and, either way, be content.

Piper’s stomach clenched as she froze.

_Holy shit, I love her._

“You –“ Piper’s own throat tightened for a moment, but she cleared it with a cough. “You did it for him. He would have been happy with that.”

Blue’s crying was beginning to grow softer and farther apart, but she sniffed as she said “You’re – you’re right.”

“Exactly that. Nate would want you to be alright, and it will be alright.”

A few seconds passed before Blue picked up the conversation again.

“Piper.” She turned to face the reporter now. “I don’t know if you ever went and talked to that girl after we talked about it, but he was my soulmate, you know?”

Piper closed her eyes. “I know.”

Blue faced away from her. “I’d...I would have done anything for my soulmate.”

Piper was glad her eyes were shut so she could ignore the sudden sting. She gritted her teeth to prevent from letting out a few tears of her own. “I would too.”

“And now…it feels like it’s officially over.” Blue shook her head, absentmindedly playing with the wedding ring still upon her left hand with her other.

“It’s an end,” Piper offered. “and a beginning. He would want you to be happy.”

“You’re right. This is the beginning of the rest of my life, I guess.” Blue turned now toward Piper, her eyes still brimming but softened, smiling at Piper. “I’m...I’m really glad you’re a part of it.”

Piper felt her heart break right then and there in that moment, but she gave Blue’s hand a gentle squeeze. “I’m glad you’re a part of mine, too.”

"So now..." Blue looked out into the distance with a thousand yard stare. "I find Shaun. And I kill the entire Institute."

"Yeah, you and half the Commonwealth share that sentiment."

"Maybe I can recruit them, then. So long as I get to kill the bastard that leads the whole damn thing."

"You've recruited me." Piper squeezed Blue's hand again, this time tighter. "We're in this together now."

Blue squeezed back. "I know. You're my best friend. I'm starting this new life with you at my side. It's...time to start over, I guess. I'll find a hobby other than plotting my bloodbath revenge against the Institute - maybe knitting."

The vault dweller let out a hollow laugh. “Who knows. Maybe I’ll find another soulmate. That’d be a kicker.”

Piper bit her lip to keep herself from sobbing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN:
> 
> fanfic trope: and they were soulmates!
> 
> me, crying: oh my god they were soulmates


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: This is such a long god damn chapter, my fuckin bad. This is just a collection of loose change paragraphs that I Frankensteined together over finals week, given birth to at a very unhinged quarter to 5 AM by a writer as mad as a March hare. Because of course it was.
> 
> I'm so god damn sorry this is getting so long. I'm trying not to! I promise! I didn't mean for it to get this long! This was supposed to be, like, four chapters! Fangul! Cut off my fucking fingers! I'm trying to write so much other fanfic AND a book! Maybe! If I ever get around to WRITING TO IT because writing BE LIKE THAT!!!
> 
> Anyway, here's the E rating, albeit mildly for now. But just for now~

The rising sun shined over the darkened Commonwealth, gifting the desolate wasteland a comforting, golden glow. Light painted through the cracks and alleyways of desolate Boston, wrapping around its buildings and peeking through its broken windows.

It was early enough that Piper would be long asleep, probably not to wake up until a few hours later. Which wasn’t surprising, considering that Piper usually was awake long after Brigid would have fallen asleep. Sometimes, however, she’d inadvertently keep the vault dweller up with the loud scratching of pen against paper, intermingled with Piper’s muttered curses under her breath followed by fervent scribbling or, Brigid’s personal favorite, when the writing would stop and she heard Piper sigh and, to herself, whisper aloud “You’ve still got it, Wright. Still got it.”

Brigid chuckled. Sometimes Brigid would hardly sleep herself, almost as if Piper was rubbing the habit off on her. When she was positive the reporter wasn’t looking, she’d open one eye and just simply observe: Piper Wright, cigarette clenched between two fingers that would have been long forgotten about if she was _really_ in the thick of writing. Her hat sometimes beside her but still in that jacket -

\- still wearing those gloves.

The thought wasn’t worth dwelling on. Brigid had a soulmate, albeit a soulmate who was...no longer with her. Piper had a soulmate, somewhere who, apparently, was nothing to Piper but a lost thought carried away by the wind. Baffling to Brigid, to say in the least; maybe it was her own personal experience, but she couldn’t imagine what her life would be like if she kept up her stubborn act and didn’t pursue Nate. Did Piper really not care about her soulmate, or did it hurt too much?

Brigid almost wished she could pry it out of her, but she had to be a good friend despite herself – even if the lack of information was killing her.

“Ballistic fiber.” Brigid murmured aloud, as if turning her focus back to her initial quest and saying it aloud would kill her thoughts. “Gotta find ballistic fiber.”

Unsurprisingly, the area around Fort Hagen was rife with army supplies. She’d stuffed as many army bags as she could within themselves like Russian dolls, intending to bring every single one back to the Red Rocket outside of the fortress. Despite the amount of beds in Fort Hagen, Brigid would have felt sick to sleep in the same place that Kellogg’s body was rotting. Unfortunately, it had gotten dark since they’d entered the fortress and instead of exhausting themselves to trek back to Diamond City, they’d raided some blankets and pillows to have a genuine, makeshift campground in the filling station that almost resembled a teenaged sleepover.

The Red Rocket, conveniently, was equipped with work stations for Power Armor, weapons, armor, the like which inspired Brigid, which lead her to scouring the surroundings of the fortress, which only caused her ire to rise with every step she took.

Brigid herself was fine with her leather armor. It was Piper she was worried about; when they found themselves surrounded by synths in the claustrophobic walls of Fort Hagen, Brigid had seen a fiery bolt from a laser pistol completely put a hole in Piper’s coat, just missing her body by a fraction of an inch. They’d been hurt before, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed without a stimpack. There was the rare dislocated shoulder or sprained ankle that needed some TLC, but the idea of either of them getting horrifically hurt was, well...horrific.

Two stubborn people apparently did not belong together, and Piper was insistent on keeping the coat instead of actual, _practical_ armor. Said something along the lines of it being a trademark as well as sentimental to her, even going to far as “it’s served me well so far!” which Brigid exasperatedly argued against, considering that Piper was almost fried by laser pistols. An argument ensued that only ended when the two of them fell asleep, grumbling their “good night”s to each other from a few feet away.

Coat be damned. If Piper was so insistent on wearing nothing but shabby red leather between her and bullet, bites, or worse, Brigid was at least going to make it a little more defensive.

Finally satisfied with the amount of supplies (which Piper would have poked fun at her for collecting “antiques”) she’d scavenged, she brought her haul back to the Red Rocket just after the sun had fully risen. Peering into the Red Rocket, Brigid saw that sure enough, Piper was still sleeping, curled up and content.

Brigid crept toward the infamous red jacket neatly folded by Piper’s shoes. She collected it into her arms, freezing every time Piper moved in her sleep, cautious as not to wake her.

She crouched down again, ready to creep back to the armor workbench before she looked back over her shoulder at the sleeping Piper. She looked so peaceful in her sleep so much so that it made Brigid’s heart soften.

Right now, there wasn’t any danger. Besides the Institute – which, in this serene moment, Brigid tried not to think about else it would cause her to boil over with unfiltered, needless frustration and anger – there was nothing looming over their shoulder. No gunfights, no running from the hounds, just the two of them. Brigid at work, Piper asleep and safe, the two of them in a comforting absolute silence.

“You’re lucky you’re cute.” Brigid grumbled at the unconscious Piper.

Brigid took the coat back to the workbench, grabbing a needle and thread with some of the fiber she’d stripped.

Again, she looked over her shoulder at her companion, all curled up in her blanket. The woman whom she had followed when she lead Brigid through a quasi-boot camp to learn how to survive, the woman who, in turn, followed Brigid to face Brigid’s nightmares. The woman who had such an incredible patience but fenced back with an alarmingly sharp wit, the woman who had been a shoulder to cry on and a friend to laugh with.

The woman who was so god damn intent on wearing that stupid, undefended red coat – which Brigid would not allow. She couldn’t have Piper get hurt on her watch – no, she absolutely _wouldn’t._ Brigid wouldn’t be able to stand if that wonderful smile twisted into something painful, if she got injured because of the two of them had decided to wander off together. Piper could take care of herself, of course, but Brigid wanted to be able to take care of her, too. She wanted to make Piper feel safe, make her feel happy, make her feel cared for. Brigid had so many wants but most of them were turning in the direction of Piper because –

Brigid froze in the middle of sewing, ignoring the fact that she’d just pricked her finger doing so.

_Holy shit, I love her._

The thought made her grit her teeth and angrily begin sewing again. Of course, stupid her, falling in love with someone who already had a soulmate. A stupid, masochistic thing. Something that would never happen because Piper was either A) going to find her soulmate and make her the happiest woman in the world that Brigid would forever be envious of or B) neglect her soulmate, forget her soulmate. And what then?

Regardless, it boiled down to Brigid pining over her best friend. Which was pathetic.

Brigid focused herself solely going back to her work in order to prevent herself from dwelling on those kinds of thoughts too long or a coat wouldn’t be the only thing that needed fixing.

-

“So, Goodneighbor?” Piper gently stamped out the butt of her cigarette in the ashtray between the two of them.

“Goodneighbor. That’s where this ‘Doctor Amari’ lives.” Blue nodded, finger quoting the doctor’s name for emphasis. “Nick said that’s our best bet because of the whole cyber...bio...thing.” At that, Blue fetched the aforementioned cybernetic implant that she’d been keeping in her pocket, inspecting it in the fluorescent light as if seeing it again for the first time.

Piper gagged. “Please put that away.”

“What, this?” Blue wiggled the implant between her fingers. It had been long since sanitized from when it was lodged in Kellogg’s brain, but it was still gruesome to think about.

“Uck. Yes, that.” Piper clenched her fists, turning away from Blue. “It was _inside_ of someone.”

“Hey! That’s what she said!” Blue’s cheeks were already red from a singular beer (because she always managed to get the most _adorable_ Irish flush whenever a drop of alcohol passed her lips). She beamed, looking back at the object and in that same cheery voice remarked “It’s kind of like a final ‘fuck you’ from beyond the grave. A trophy from a hunt, you know?”

Piper frowned. “Not really.”

Piper managed to track Blue’s eye movement as the vault dweller gazed down at her wedding ring in one moment and back to the implant in another.

“Huh.” Was all that Blue remarked. She shrugged, putting the implant back in the pocket from whence it came. “I’ll have to turn it over to Doctor Amari, anyway. Won’t be worrying about it for long.”

Blue scowled. “One down, one more to go.”

The Institute. The Commonwealth’s boogeyman. A story that Piper had been following for months, her work occurring and being procured through shadows and whispers – and her soulmate was going to rush right toward it without a hint of subtlety, fully intent on breaking down the entrance before darkening the doorstep.

“The Institute.” Piper’s voice lowered to a whisper; she had enough of a reputation of being a fear mongering conspiracy theorist in Diamond City as is. There was no reason to start talking aloud about it in the Dugout Inn. She could rant about the subject for hours, but the patrons of Diamond City were already suffocating enough in a cramped environment.

Still, the Dugout was as good a place as any to unwind after being outside the walls all day. Blue certainly could have used a drink after Fort Hagen and, although Blue certainly knew what caps were, Piper was insistent on buying the first round.

“Right. Them.” Blue then gulped down the rest of the whiskey in her glass for emphasis, slamming the tumbler against the lacquered tabletop as the ending of that statement. Raising her hand in an attempt to wave the waitress, Scarlett, Blue continued. “Their days are numbered.”

“And what do you plan on doing, exactly?” Piper asked exasperatedly. “You’re going to waltz into the Institute with a gun and get Shaun out that way?”

“I was thinking a Fat Man, but yeah. Something similar to that.”

“Christ.” Piper’s hands flew to her face with a long, drawn out groan. Before she could berate Blue for the thought, Scarlett arrived over at the table.

“Hey!” Blue fished out a few caps from her pocket. “Mind if I get another whiskey? And -” She glanced over at Piper and her empty water bottle. “What’re you having, Pipes?”

“I’m gonna switch to water now, thanks.” Piper was trying to stay hydrated _and_ fiscally responsible.

“Fine. A water for my friend here.” Narrowing her eyes at Piper, she added “ _And_ a beer.”

As Scarlett walked away to get the drinks, Piper rolled her eyes. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Blue flashed her a toothy grin. “I had this notion that you’re trying to be fiscally responsible. And stay hydrated at that? Admirable, but don’t worry. I’ve got it.”

Having a soulmate certainly made ordering drinks at the bar easier, but the idea that Blue knew just what she was wanting and feeling was always going to shock Piper. “How’d you know?”

“Because when we walked through the door of the bar you said, and I quote,” Blue’s voice raised in pitch to imitate Piper. “‘ _Huh, I really could go for a beer right now._ _Oh well, gotta_ _save money to buy some new parts for the printing press, blah blah blah.’_ ”

Okay. Maybe it wasn’t as shocking as she had thought. Piper would have elbowed Blue in the ribs if she were sitting next to her so she kicked her underneath the table instead. “I don’t sound like that.”

“Sure you don’t.” Blue took a sip of her whiskey to hide her widening smirk.

After a half minute of a few sips in comfortable silence, Piper piped up at last. “So you’re really not afraid of them?”

“What, the Institute?” Blue shook her head. “No.”

“How could you not be?” Piper’s voice lowered again into a hissed whisper. “They’re – they’re _monstrous,_ the things they do. Nobody knows who they are. I’d be afraid of them.”

“It’s beyond fear, Piper.” Blue grew somber. “I _have_ to do this.”

“I know you _want_ to –“

“ _Want_ to?” Blue shook her head again, this time incredulously, now becoming irritated in a record breaking amount of time. “Are you saying that I can’t? You’re my keeper all of a sudden?”

“You know that’s not fair.” Piper pointed a singular finger at Blue because Christ. Of course it came down to this. “I’m just airing out what I’m thinking.”

“I know.” The corners of Blue’s mouth were still down-turned, ready to snarl a retort or otherwise bite back, but the bristly vault dweller eventually gave a deep sigh in defeat.

Practically inaudible, so soft that it was hardly a whisper, Blue added “I’m a little afraid, too.” Taking a long gulp of her drink, however, she added for good measure “Won’t stop me from burning the place to the ground and killing everyone in it.”

Piper let out an awkward chuckle. “Uh, yeah. Maybe not the mass murder, but I get it.”

“They don’t even know what’s coming for them yet.” Blue narrowed her eyes for a moment before turning back to Piper, looking down at her jacket. “Speaking of which, how’s the coat?”

“I can’t even notice it, honestly.” When Piper had awoken earlier this morning to Blue tossing her her own coat saying “’ _Guess what’s different about it!’_ ”, soulmate be damned, she very much could have killed her right then and there. Thankfully, the difference of before and after was very slim – the jacket was a little stiffer now, but nothing that made it feel horribly bulky or oppressive.

“Good. Nice.” Blue beamed at her handiwork but, breaking eye contact, she sheepishly muttered “Sorry for doing that without your permission.”

“It’s alright.” Piper shot her a thumbs up. “You’re just lucky it’s not horribly different or you wouldn’t be alive right now.”

“Ms. Wright,” Blue teased, tongue in cheek. “Is that a threat or a promise?”

“Both.”

“Noted.”

Another moment of comfortable silence passed between the two – Blue hummed along to a song that was playing on the radio, Piper jeered at her for her horrible pitch. After a while Piper lit up another cigarette and, as the time passed by, the two of them ordered another round.

“So.” Blue fidgeted in her seat. “How’s that...problem of yours doing?”

“Hmmph?”

“That soulmate thing.” Blue piped up, and Piper almost choked on her drink the moment. Luckily, Blue must not have noticed because, wringing her hands, she continued. “You ever figure that out?”

Did she – could she? The answer was painfully obvious to her, so much so that saying it aloud solidified it even more than the concrete idea had already took.

“Yeah – I mean, no.” Piper bit her lip, looking to the side and away from Blue. “It’s not going to work out.”

“What do you mean, ‘it’s not going to work out?’” Blue’s eyebrows raised in shock. “She’s –“

“It’s just not meant to be.” Piper sighed this time, closing her eyes, wanting to be anywhere but here, talking about anything but _this._

“You’re not meant to be?!” Blue narrowed her eyes in half shock, half suspicion. “That’s the _whole_ point of soulmates.”

“Look.” With a softer, sympathetic tenderness to her voice – which definitely was twisting the blade plunged deep in Piper’s heart – Blue began to reach forward as if to grab Piper’s hand. “I don’t mean to be pushy. I just want you to –“

“ _She_ and I are not going to work out, Blue.” Piper bit back, pulling her hand back with lightning quick reflexes. Her voice a little harsher than intended, but the tone at least just barely masked the shakiness to her voice. “We’re not going to –“

“I’m sorry.” This time Blue reached her hand out halfway, waiting to see if Piper would flinch away before she gently grabbed the reporter’s own hand, interweaving her fingers gently between hers. “I wouldn’t have gone on about it if –“

“It’s fine.” Piper was still so inconceivably, so _incredibly_ frustrated that she muttered the reply through gritted teeth, ignoring the stinging that was threatening the corner of her eyes.

A moment of silence overtook the table. Piper just now realized how _noisy_ the Dugout Inn was, what with it being packed to the gills, smoke lingering in the air, Diamond City Radio tinning from an old radio in yonder corner. It made her realize, in that moment, just how much she was tuning everything out and paying attention to Blue the entire night.

“We can talk about it, if you like.” Blue shrugged with one shoulder. “I seem to recall owing you one.”

“Owing me what?”

“Comfort.” Blue rolled her eyes. “Yesterday. When I was an inconsolable mess.”

“Right.” Piper nodded, then, in an afterthought. “How are you holding up, by the way?”

“I’m doing as well as I can right now.” Blue gave a way-too-wide grin and, as if to emphasize, she brought her drink to her lips and chugged it until it was empty.

“Uh-huh.” Piper said cautiously. “Blue, you sure we should –“

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Blue waved the comment away, chin up, adjusting her posture. “I’m holding it in right now. I’ll wait to cry inconsolably until after you leave.”

“I don’t have to leave you.” Piper replied automatically. When Blue raised her eyebrows, Piper corrected herself. “I – I mean...you can crash on my couch the night or something.”

Blue deflated. “I already paid for my room at the Dugout.”

“Then I guess I’ll wait until you’re ready to sleep.” Piper smiled, knowing she was going to hate herself in the morning for this. “In the meanwhile, I’ll buy your next one.”

Blue’s smile was so genuine compared to the counterfeit one that it filled Piper with a satisfaction at being the one who made that smile happen but _God_. It was so painfully beautiful that Piper was the one who was probably going to break when Blue left.

“Well, now that we’re settled,” Blue straightened her posture again, tapping her fingers against the table almost as if in anticipation. “Dish.”

Piper furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”

“Come on, tell me about it! Give me your words of sorrow – grief that doesn’t speak bids the heart to break, or something along those lines.” Blue rested her chin on her hand. “Whaddya need? A bottle of water? Glass of wine? Somebody’s arm broken? Talk to me, Piper.”

Piper let out a deep exhale, steadying herself. “Sometimes I wish I didn’t even have a soulmate. This would hurt _so_ much less.”

“You know, if it means anything,” Blue shot Piper a half cocked grin. “I’ll hate this girl for you if you can’t.”

Despite the inner turmoil turning the cogs of her brain, Piper barely bit back a laugh at the irony.

Blue blinked. “Really! I mean it! Not to sound self important, but whoever this bitch thinks she is hurting _my_ best friend like this can get dragged right by the neck into hell. I’ll fight her, I really will –” She pointed a finger directly at Piper. “– just for you.”

This time Piper snorted. “Thanks for the...confusing imagery and the support but...I don’t know if I could ever bring myself to hate her.” She really couldn’t. Even when Blue was irritable – and even when she snored in her sleep like a god damn _motor_ whenever she drank the night before – she was still so wonderful. All of those things, even the negatives, made up the woman she loved. Despite her unknowing violence toward herself.

Blue nodded in sympathy. “You know, I was so frustrated when Nate and I realized we were soulmates. He was just some douchebag stranger at a party. I didn’t like him from the get go.”

Piper blinked, cocking her head. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Blue looked beyond Piper now, almost as if in recollection. “I made a point of avoiding him just because of that. Denying the whole thing, you know? He believed in the whole notion of soulmates. I didn’t. I made a purpose of avoiding him until...well. When I eventually gave in.”

As the story trailed off, Blue’s face began to melt. “I can hardly remember now.”

Piper had seen that melancholic look before. Despite the vault dweller being roughly the same age that she was (although with a two hundred year difference, give or take), Blue would walk around Boston occasionally, fixate upon one particular place – probably something that was once significant to her – and stop in her tracks. Sometimes Piper would catch her reading the Boston Bugle that went out the day the bomb dropped. Copies of it were scattered across the city and, whenever Blue happened upon one, she read it until she’d stripped every word off. Scour it until she memorized single letter, every single punctuation, almost as if it would bring her back to the Pre-War era – back home. Almost as if she was trying to figure out what went wrong. How they could have stopped it.

Piper was determined to shake that look off of her. “That’s probably because of the booze. That’s your two hundredth drink.”

Blue blinked, shaking her head out of her own thoughts and, as if she needed extra time to process Piper’s words, she gave a soft laugh. “One hundred and ninety nine, thank you.”

-

The walk back to Publick Occurrences was more of a wobble considering that Piper and Blue almost drank half the bar in the time they’d spent there. Which was an inordinate amount of time, really, because the sky when they walked into the Dugout Inn was _barely_ dark and the sky was becoming _barely_ light.

Blue made her intentions very clear that she was still leaving early in the morning simply because “she can’t function when she sleeps in”. When she dismissed Piper, Piper was both grateful and deflated; on one hand, she was ecstatic that she’d finally be able to go back to the good old days of staying up until 4 AM writing and, better yet, spend some time with Nat. On another hand, Piper realized that, even though this was going to be a few day ordeal maybe lasting a week depending on where Blue’s trail lead, the two of them really hadn’t spent much time apart before.

Fumbling hands unlocked the doors to Publick Occurrences. Piper lit a cigarette, having long craved one in her intoxication, while trying to multitask and ascend the stairs with a little bit of uneasiness to her step. She winced at every creaking sound; even though she knew Nat was off having a sleepover with Nina, her sister definitely would have been woken up by the sounds and older sister instinct had long been ingrained in Piper that she should never wake up young Natalie. Making it to the top of the stairs, she lazily kicked off her shoes across the room, staring down the loft at the mess she called her home.

“God.” Piper looked out at her mighty works and despaired. Since she’d been gone the dust had collected a little, but had the apartment slash office always been this shabby? Sure, they would sometimes be surviving cap to cap in the Wright house when the stories ran dry but, especially without Nat, the place seemed so...empty.

Nat was getting older. It was an unfortunate aspect of Piper having a job on the road – she was missing her sister grow up. Not horribly so, because Piper would at least spend a decent amount of time home when she realized she was away for too long, but Nat had quickly moved from diapers (thank God) to toddlerhood to childhood and, now, to becoming a pre-teen.

At the thought of raising a teenager, however, Piper took a very, very long drag of her cigarette.

Publick Occurences. The home of the Wright sisters and, when Nat would eventually leave the nest (which was another thought that Piper didn’t want to think about), would still remain to be Piper’s eternal bachelorette suite. Piper’s den to wallow by herself, live by herself, die by herself.

Piper shifted in her bed, uncomfortable at how loud the sound was in the empty home. _Maybe while I’m at it entertaining the spinster fantasy, I should get a cat. Or twelve._

A few weeks ago, the prospect of being alone wouldn’t have bothered Piper in the slightest. She was very comfortable with the prospect wallowing by herself, living by herself, and dying by herself; in truth, it was what she preferred over the notion of having a soulmate.

Now?

Blue would be waking in a few hours. Piper _could_ stay up and greet her at the gates, maybe follow her and Nick out of Diamond City and trek to Goodneighbor. Maybe hole up at the Rexford a night,

Maybe even grab drinks at the Third Rail before. Smoke in the air. Laughter around them as friends huddled and couples absconded to darkened corners. One drink. Magnolia would be performing, singing a red velvet melody. Another drink. Beads of liquid from the whiskey that Blue was drinking on her mouth, Piper leaning over the table to kiss it off, swiping her tongue against Blue’s bottom lip and biting it gently. The vault dweller shuddering and gasping into her mouth, grabbing her hand, slamming a few caps on the table as their anxious hands held each others and ran to the Rexford, crept into the shared bedroom –

Piper blinked once, twice, shaking her head to tear that very abrupt fantasy to pieces. Even as she did, however, she closed her eyes and bit her lip at the _heat_ that suddenly coursed through her, sending an icy cold yet white hot shudder down her spine that made her curl her toes and let out a deep, shaky breath.

The fantasy was definitely hers, and she hated herself for imagining her best friend in a position like that. The feeling, however, was sudden. Something that almost felt like hers, but almost as if –

_Oh._

Right. They haven’t been alone for some time. It wouldn’t have been easy for Blue to sneak off when they were practically inseparable for weeks. A woman’s got needs, after all.

Piper gripped tight at the bed sheets till her knuckles were white and her nails would leave half-moon creases in the palms of her hands, clenching her thighs together in a desperate attempt to relieve the heat that had very suddenly come over her and intensified.

The “shared feeling” aspect of having a soulmate was an indifferent feeling at best and an inconvenience more often than not. Right now, Piper was tempted to find the closest machete and, possessed with an otherworldly frustration, chop off her own hand.

Blue was over there in the Dugout Inn. Piper tried desperately not to mentally picture Blue right now, but another vivid fantasy overtook her. She could practically imagine it down to the detail: Blue, probably spread against the cheap mattress, her back arching against the bed in a way that Piper was _so_ tempted to do right now if she didn’t have an iron restraint. Her head rolled back with her hand in her hair, gently teasing herself – _Piper’s name on her lips._

It was a wild daydream: nothing that would ever happen, but _God,_ the thought alone made Piper delirious with want but also groan with an all consuming frustration as she shimmied out of her pants, cursing Blue for ever existing.

-

Brigid still managed to wake up on the time she’d planned, even if it was only with a few hours of sleep. The Dugout Inn didn’t sell coffee, however, so in a desperate attempt to kill her throbbing headache she grabbed a Nuka Cola for the road and chugged it down, gagging at the saccharine, syrupy sweetness of the soda but craving that sweet, sweet caffeine fix she needed so desperately.

Nick Valentine, as it turned out, was going to meet her at Goodneighbor. Which was fine by her, honestly, but Brigid at least wished she had Dogmeat or Codsworth with her – someone who would travel with her so she wouldn’t die of loneliness.

_Maybe Piper?_

Brigid shook her head at the thought. The reporter could probably use to spend some time with her sister. Besides, if Brigid was ever going to tackle her feelings for Piper head on and take the time to acknowledge them, it needed to be in an environment where Piper wouldn’t be five feet away from her. Somewhere she’d be where she wouldn’t be able to compromise herself – and wouldn’t be able to be influenced by things she _really_ shouldn’t be thinking, things she never should have thought about in the first place.

Brigid rounded the corner to head in the direction of the gate and, lo and behold, there stood Piper Wright with one hand in her pocket, leaning with one hand of Publick Occurrences on the door and propping herself up.

“Heading my way?” An eager voice asked her, Piper looking at her with a friendly smile and bloodshot eyes.

Brigid crossed her arms. “Did you sleep at _all_?”

“Not a wink.” Piper smiled slowly, the weariness on her obvious.

The reporter was definitely going to crash in a few hours and that burden was going to be on Brigid, but she wasn’t going to deny her best friend’s company if she was freely offering it. “You sure you want to travel with me?”

“Well, it’s either that or get back to the paper.” Piper desperately blinked herself into focus, but she still gave Brigid a mischievous smirk. “I guess the paper can wait.”

Brigid still crossed her arms. Piper, as if to convince the doubtful vault dweller, shot her both a wink and finger guns, clicking her tongue.

Finally, Brigid sighed. “Come on.”

Piper gave a wonderfully excited smile. “Sure thing.”

The two of them walked up the railing toward the direction of the gates, but Brigid couldn’t help but stare back at the reporter. 

Did she really not sleep at all, or did she stay up waiting for Brigid? Was she really that concerned about her? Was that concern more than a friendly concern – did she dislike being separated from Brigid as much as Brigid disliked being separated from Piper? The thoughts made her head spin more than her hangover did, made her uneasy more than a hangover ever could – 

_Nope. That’s definitely the Nuka Cola._

“Piper?” Brigid shut her eyes tight, pursing her lips to keep her mouth as closed as possible.

Piper was probably inattentive because of the lack of sleep or her thoughts must have been elsewhere, because her response was a surprised, bleary “Oh, what? What’s up?”

“I’m glad you decided to come with me –“

“Aw, Blue, I’m glad to –“

“- because you’re going to have to hold my hair.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: if you drink dark soda when hungover or otherwise nauseous, you WILL throw up. A word to the wise, the alcoholics, the underaged, the inexperienced, or anyone who might need that not so fun fact.


End file.
